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

[Jim Croft]

This is not unlike the dreaded 'G' word. :)

Google presents itself as a single index, but is fact replicated many
times across the globe.

This distributed replication of a shared dataset is somethign I would
like to see for collaborative projects such as the Australia's Virtual
Herbarium, the International Plant Name Index, the Atlas of Living
Australia, perhaps the Biodiversity Heritage Library and a bunch of
others.

The problems seems to be no-one appears able to rise to the challence
of doing it.  This is largely because the central monolith is so much
easier to create, if you want standards you can just make them up, you
don't have to worry about real time synchronization, you get a quick,
responsive and attractive result to strut before your funders and
employers and you don't have to negotiate too much with stakeholders
about functionality and other requirement thingies.

jim

On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:
>
> This reminds me of a conversation Jim and I had over a decade ago about the
> dreaded "C" word ["Centralization"].  What I advocated for back then is what
> I advocate now:
>
> "Centralization" in the sense that EVERYONE shares the same idnetifiers to
> the shared data objects when building data cross-links; but "Distributed" in
> the senese that EVERYONE has their own local copy of the COMPLETE shared
> dataset, which they can use as they see fit.
>
> The *only* requirements for such a system are:
>
> 1) A robust mechanism for maintaining synchrony among the datasets; and
>
> 2) A core set of community-generated and -agreed policies to mitigate the
> amplifiction of crap data in the shared datasets.
>
> I see NO OTHER WAY to progress in our community without FULL AND DIRECT OPEN
> ACCESS to shared electronic data content (at least the non-copyrightable
> stuff, like taxon names, literature citations, etc.), based on a mechanism
> that ensures MASSIVE (but harmonized) redundancy across the plant.  Fail
> either of these two critera, and it's just not worth the effort.
>
> Aloha,
> Rich
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Croft
>> Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 5:10 PM
>> To: Stephen Thorpe
>> Cc: TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Sorry, but you are out-of-line
>>
>> This does not worry me at all. Different interfaces to
>> different questions, different purposes - horses for courses,
>> tools for the job.
>>
>> The real nightmare is different (and worse incompatable)
>> underlying standards and the inability to get a single view
>> of the whole lot, with all the duplication and
>> incompatability resolved.
>>
>> Centralism is one way (the technically easy way, becasue
>> everybody tries it) to deal with this, but the thought of a
>> single taxonomic/nomenclatural/biodiversity monolithic
>> juggernaut fills me with abject fear and dread.
>>
>> Ask any major institution - centralism is fine, as long as it
>> does not happen 'at that other place'... :)
>>
>> jim (a distributed and replicated, belt and braces kida guy;
>> a guy who is not only glass half empty, but who is scared
>> shitless because the container is made of glass)
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Stephen Thorpe
>> <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:
>> > ... on the other hand, the problem with biodiversity informatics
>> > projects (lime CoL, EoL, GBIF, WoRMS, etc.) is that although they
>> > share their data, they all want to create their own interfaces ...
>> --
>> _________________
>> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
>> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
>> 'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to
>> the point of doubtful sanity.'
>>  - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
>>
>> Please send URIs, not attachments:
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>
>



-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
of doubtful sanity.'
 - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Please send URIs, not attachments:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html