[Taxacom] Announcement: New edition of Terms Used in Bionomenclature

[Karen Wilson]

 Congratulations to David Hawksworth and GBIF for making this glossary available! It will be a very useful reference for many people. 

Contrary to Paul's experience, I had no trouble downloading the pdf. Maybe it was a hiccup in your system at that particular time, Paul? 

Regards
Karen Wilson
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Karen L. Wilson  |  Senior Research Scientist  Plant Diversity Section  |  National Herbarium of NSW  |  Botanic Gardens  and DomainTrust, Sydney  |   Phone:  9231 8137   |  Fax:   9251 7231  |  email: karen.wilson at rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au




-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of dipteryx at freeler.nl
Sent: Friday, 28 May 2010 5:24 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Announcement: New edition of Terms Used in Bionomenclature

Van: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu namens David Remsen (GBIF)
Verzonden: do 27-5-2010 15:03

Dear Taxacomers,

FYI

I'd like to announce the publication of an updated edition of Terms  
Used in Bionomenclature, compiled by Prof. David Hawksworth.   This is  
a glossary of over 2,100 terms used in biological nomenclature - the  
naming of whole organisms of all kinds.   The glossary is available in  
print-ready PDF format as well as via an online web application that can be browsed, searched, and output in HTML, JSON and RDF to support  
re-use and referencing.   GBIF is also producing a limited number of  
paper copies of the glossary which will be available at GBIF-supported  
meetings and events.   The web application supports the development of  
controlled vocabularies using resolvable identifiers for nomenclatural terms.

More information and links to the PDF and web versions can be found on the glossary home page at

http://www.gbif.org/communications/resources/print-and-online-resources/bionomenclature/

The web application is online at http://bionomenclature-glossary.gbif.org/

I'm happy to field comments on the implementation and pass on comments regarding the content to David Hawksworth.

Kind regards,
David Remsen
(GBIF)

***
Clearly, this represents a very great deal of work!

A few comments, based on the web application (the PDF does not download at all?):

The items in the "contents" index in very great part (the greater part?) do not directly lead to the actual entry (for instance "Taxacom" does lead to the relevant entry, but "misapplied name" does not), and the same appears to be the case for the internal links (from within one entry to another entry).

For many entries there is an indication of the field of nomenclature, with a link, but:
* these links are non-informative (I am not sure what they actually do: 
something like opening a subset of the glossary?)
* in some cases these are haphazard (as in "available name" with all the sub-entries purportedly being botanical, and in "homonym" all being
phytological)
* the terms themselves are rather inconsistent, with sometimes adjectives (Botanical, Palaeontological, Phytological, Zoological), sometimes the whole thing (Biocode, Phyllocode), and sometimes in between (virus, Cultivated Plants, Prokaryote). In the case of the "Biocode", "Phyllocode" [ sic! ] the preferred form should be BioCode and PhyloCode. 

I am also seeing some inaccuracies in content and some typo's, but I am not sure I want to go into those.

Best wishes,
Paul van Rijckevorsel
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