[Taxacom] Journal/Wiki publication and dissemination of a new taxon description

Donat Agosti agosti at amnh.org
Mon Feb 7 22:04:52 CST 2011 

The advantage of species-Id or Wikipedia is, that texts can be modified by
(almost) anybody that wants to take on the job, and that there is always a
way to find out the individual contributions, and especially, in the case
such as the Zookeys contribution, what the original seed was: who published
the original description or the redescription.
Having the entire publication online might seem overkill. I look at this
differently. The publication at Zookeys (or any other in fact) is a stable
document, a semi legal document in the sense of the Codes that can not be
modified. Thus the interest of a publisher is to produce those and assure
that they are as widely distributed as possible. Since our knowledge is
increasing with every new observation, and may be alternative analyses, the
insights on a particular taxon will evidently change. Change can be made at
different level. The author can collect more information and at some point
in the normally far future will publish a redescription. The author might
use tools such as scratchpads to keep the information up to date and allow
others, normally by invitation, to contribute. The document can be in public
domain and any other person can add change, such as in Species-ID. Whilst
species-ID aims more at the scientific community, Wikipedia would be the
most open form. We have no idea what will happen if all the descriptions are
online and what all kind of ideas are out there that might contribute to the
growing of the understanding of the species. 
For that reason, I like the idea to make all the treatments online
accessible, also in the hope that at some point we have something like
Species_id that is the place to go to read about a species and then make
some additions, or links, such as creating a link to a flickr image nobody
has made yet.

Donat



-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 5:11 AM
To: Bob Mesibov; TAXACOM
Cc: Lyubomir Penev
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Journal/Wiki publication and dissemination of a new
taxon description

some thoughts on Species-ID, for what they are worth:

(NOTE: I am an admin and a beauracrat on Species-ID, but I was not involved 
directly in its creation)

so, in life it isn't how things are that is important, it is how they are 
perceived ...

many taxonomists perceptions of Wikispecies/-pedia is that "you don't know
who 
has written the info" and that there is no data security ...

Species-ID was developed, in part, to eliminate those worries, which it
might 
do, but actually I don't think there is any real difference in these factors

between Wikispecies/-pedia and Species-ID, just a difference in perception,
but 
that's OK, because in both cases you do know who has written the info
(unless 
they *choose* anonymity), and Wikispecies data is just as secure (by way of
the 
edit history). Even if a Wikispecies/-pedia contributor chooses anonymity,
that 
don't matter either, because NOR requires that all items of information be 
referenced with cited sources ...

... the *real* advantage of Species-ID is the lack of a NOR policy - this is
why 
I am keen on the site. Although it is not "peer reviewed", peer review is
often 
"less than perfect" anyway, and the onus is on a Species-ID contributor to
write 
a convincing article (that the reader can act as their own "peer reviewer"
of, 
and accept or reject accordingly)...

Anyway, it seems that the main reason for Species-ID is to do things like
they 
have done for Neobidessodes darwiniensis, i.e. simultaneous traditional/wiki

publication of new taxa. While this idea is good, I tend to think that there
is 
a bit too much repetition of what is already in the open access publication
in 
ZooKeys. If one can make the key a bit more interactive than the ZooKeys 
version, then fine, but otherwise I think the Species-ID page might function

better just as a place to put corrigenda and addenda, rather than repeating
info 
from the ZooKeys version. For example, the species is known at present only
from 
the unique holotype. It is quite possible that additional material will turn
up 
at some stage, and it might not warrant a traditional publication to report 
this, but Michael or someone could just sit down at his computer and type
the 
details of the new material in on the corrigenda and addenda page. Little
bits 
of new information on the species could be made public trivially easily and 
without publication delays ...

So, my idea for a Neobidessodes darwiniensis page on Species-ID would be to
just 
give the basic name details, links to the original publication, Wikispecies,
and 
whatever other links are relevant, and then just a corrigenda and addenda 
heading which can be added to at any stage ...

Stephen
 
Lyubo Penev's announcement seems to have gotten buried among the evolution 
education and odometer georeferencing threads. This is definitely worth a
look:

http://www.species-id.net/wiki/Neobidessodes_darwiniensis

One way to see the species-ID wiki is that it's a Wikipedia variant, i.e. a 
Wikipedia species page with elements of Wikispecies and a lot more detail.
Or 
maybe a vastly improved and liberated EOL page.

The thought that intrigues me is: what a fantastic resource the species-ID
pages 
would now be for the first Linnean species, if only we'd had the Net and
digital 
tools 250 years ago!

<irony>Anyway, since nearly all the world's *important* species are named
and 
properly classified nowadays, we don't really need a species-ID wiki. It
would 
be different if most of the world's *important* species were still
undescribed, 
because we could use a species-ID wiki to build up knowledge about a whole
range 
of new taxa using 'crowd-sourced' information.</irony>
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
Ph: (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/?articleID=570

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________________________________

From: Bob Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Cc: Lyubomir Penev <info at pensoft.net>
Sent: Tue, 8 February, 2011 2:04:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Journal/Wiki publication and dissemination of a new
taxon 
description



      
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