[Taxacom] Mystery taxonomic compilation on the web...

[Chris Thompson]

Yes, that looks like something from Joel, but it illustrate an important 
issue, the lack of attribution.

This is one of the major problems with the "wiki" concept.

People plagiarizing information, that is, taking information from somewhere 
else and presenting it without attribution.

Joel Hallan has been doing that for years. But he is only one of many.

We have been try to build a comprehensive SCIENTIFIC database of the species 
and their names for flies (Diptera) of the World for years. Flies represent 
about 10% of the known Global biodiversity. Almost from day one back in 
1996, when we first went online at what was the Diptera site and the 
BioSystematic Database of World Diptera, I have been surprised to see the 
number of people / websites that have harvested our names and not given 
proper attribution*. Yes, everything is "free" online, but ...

The hallmark of SCIENCE is both peer-review and respect for previous work, 
which the "wiki" concept and other online entities ignore.

And for the users this means they do not get the best and most up-to-date 
information.

As they do not know the original sources, where they probably can be BETTER 
and MORE current information and the QUALITY assessment factors are stripped 
out.

For example, every record in our now Systema Dipterorum has an indicator 
telling the user status of the information. For example, whether it has been 
peer-reviewed and if so, by whom and when. And individual records may also 
have annotations. This critical information is lost to the user when people 
simply sweep up the names from our website.

And as this "mystery taxonomic compilation," clearly documents this as it 
has links to our OBSOLETE old BioSystematic Database of World:
Nomenclator,Biosystematic Database of World Diptera 
http://198.77.169.80:591/FMPro?-db=names.fp3

That database, while still accessible, is obsolete, not updated since the 
summer of 2008, before USDA abolished my research program. The more 
appropriate database is Systema Dipterorum*, accessible at 
http://www.diptera.org/  and being now served from Copenhagen.

Oh, well ...

Sincerely

Chris Thompson
from home

*For the technically interested, we now have close to a quarter of million 
names online today, representing what are reported in the literature as some 
160,000 species (extant and fossils). And with so many names, there are a 
few errors which we, ourselves, have made. Hence, I can ever tell the 
version people have taken by searching for the unique records!

-----Original Message----- 
From: Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 10:07 PM
To: Tony.Rees at csiro.au ; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Mystery taxonomic compilation on the web...

looks like it is taken from Joel Hallan's Biology Catalogue? At any rate, a
quick glance at areas I know well shows it to be on the right track but not
completely correct or up-to-date ...




________________________________
From: "Tony.Rees at csiro.au" <Tony.Rees at csiro.au>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Tue, 30 November, 2010 1:52:35 PM
Subject: [Taxacom] Mystery taxonomic compilation on the web...

Dear all,

I have just come across this on the web - mildly surprised that I had not 
found
it before, and was wondering if anyone knows anything of the compiler:

http://mave.tweakdsl.nl/tn/index.html

There seems to be a lot of information contained but no person name 
responsible
or contact details so far as I can see...

Any advice welcome! particularly from our Dutch colleagues, maybe?

Best regards  - Tony
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The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these 
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(1) http://taxacom.markmail.org

Or (2) a Google search specified as: 
site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here