[Taxacom] Sorry, but you are out-of-line

[Stephen Thorpe]

actually, Paul, misspellings can be nomenclatural content, if they are in the 
original publication (in which case they are alternative original spellings). 
Imagine a scenario in which the 'taxonomic part' of an original publication 
appears to be self-contained and so extractable, but in the other section 
'molecular phylogenetic analysis and discussion' they spell the name wrong.  
Besides, the bioinformaticians want to keep track of ALL name instances, don't 
they?




________________________________
From: "dipteryx at freeler.nl" <dipteryx at freeler.nl>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Sun, 14 November, 2010 9:49:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Sorry, but you are out-of-line

Van: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu namens Stephen Thorpe
Verzonden: zo 14-11-2010 0:51

> one small(?) issue that has't been addressed in this thread, I don't think, 
> is that ANY publication using latin names for taxa has (potentially 
> significant) nomenclatural content (i.e., misspellings, incorrect 
combinations,
> etc.), and, linked with this, you cannot simply extract the 
> nomenclatural/descriptive content from a publication - the publication 
> must be considered as a whole.

***
Yes and no. Obviously, only a limited subset of parts of (a limited subset 
of all) publications contain nomenclatural content (and no, misspellings 
are not nomenclatural content). But indeed, there is no guarantee that
everything that is nomenclaturally relevant can be extracted neatly together
(for instance there may be a small disclaimer at the front of a book, far 
removed from the descriptive content, that it is not intended as an available 
work / an effectively published work) so it is very risky to deal with extracts 
only, unless they have been especially prepared.

A more fundamental objection is that the Codes are retroactive, which means 
that it is possible that something that is not nomenclaturally relevant now 
nevertheless may become so under some future edition of the Code, causing 
a re-evaluation of contents that may not be included in such extracts.
However, in practice this is becoming increasingly unlikely, as the Codes 
continue to mature.

Paul

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