[Taxacom] Thank you GBIF and its data providers .... and asuggestion

[Mary Barkworth]

OK, some reasons and comments re EoL and an agreement with GBIF. 
Re EOL: I signed up to edit  grasses in Eol, a group I know something about. I attempted to do all the right things but always got told that I was not registered so could not. I eventually gave up, realizing that finding 2-3 hours per week for such a task was not happening - and I am really interested in grasses. It would be inane for me to start creating pages for ferns, a  group that I know very little able about.

I should have stated that I am simply writing keys for my students to use. It is NOT a real project, aka a funded research project. It is just something that I am doing so that my students (undergraduates) can learn to key out ferns in the region - using current taxonomy. I shall make the key available on the web, primarily so that anyone else in the region can use it.  I also need to work on the keys to gymnosperms, and angiosperms. None of this is research - which my job description says should be my major emphasis.  I do it because I dislike teaching from floras that reflect a 50 yr old family treatment and using a text book that advocates a different treatment. I really do not think that the staff of GBIF staff have the time to engage in formal agreements with such a tiny project. On the other hand, they do want to have their data used, loved, and appreciated. Hence my suggestion.

So why not link to EoL pages? The few times I have gone there I have not been impressed with the information that is presented first. I go to Wikipedia. I have no desire to enter into an EoL/Wikipedia debate. Perhaps in 10 years EoL will be wonderful. For now it is not my source of choice.

Perhaps this  a rather more vehement response than is appropriate - but I am always astonished at the amount of free time one is supposed to have. I do not have it - and I am not talking about within  a 40 hr work week. 

mary