[Taxacom] Canute'ish

Sun Mar 3 13:21:35 CST 2013

"Canute'ish" ?

Paul

Well Sir, when I saw your term, I did consult the appropriate nomenclator--the online OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY--for the status of "Canuteish" or "Canutish", and got  "No dictionary entries found..."  

I wonder if we non-paying web users are dealing with a partial online edition?  Having just read the "The Professor and the Madman" the parallels between compiling the OED and  assembling historical usages of taxonomic names seems just as, well, Canute'ish!!  

 :-)

Jim Beach

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 07:47:24 +0000
From: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "CSTURMJR at pitt.edu"
	<CSTURMJR at pitt.edu>, TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Message-ID:
	<F5D52E6BEA9E81439E26E3051A9C6F5502D7FB18C32B at KEXCH00.ad.kew.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Am I missing something here ...? Is not the status of a name determined by searching the appriopriate nomenclator for the link to the article/book/monography where Code compliance (i.e. is the name available) can be determined. Yes? Might it therefore be more productive to focus on the task of ensuring the nomenclator is available than trying to control what appears on the web - the later sounds distinctly Canute'ish

Paul
________________________________________

Canutish
English
Etymology
Canute +‎ -ish, referring to a legend about Canute the Great. See [1].
Adjective
Canutish (comparative more Canutish, superlative most Canutish)
Futilely attempting to stop the unstoppable.

Canute	
995?–1035, king of England, Norway, and Denmark. The younger son of Sweyn of Denmark, Canute accompanied his father on the expedition of 1013 that invaded England and forced Æthelred to flee to Normandy. When Sweyn died (1014), the Danes in England swore fealty to Canute, but on Æthelred's return from Normandy, Canute withdrew to Denmark, where his older brother, Harold, had become king. In 1015, Canute reinvaded England with a powerful army that conquered most of Wessex, harried the Danelaw, and conquered Northumbria. After the Danish victory in the battle of Assandun, Canute divided England with Edmund Ironside, Æthelred's son. When Edmund died, late in 1016, Canute was accepted as sole king. He gave England peace and strove to continue English traditions by restoring the church to high place and codifying English law. To forestall dynastic quarrels he banished his wife (and their son Sweyn) and married Emma, the widow of Æthelred. His son by Emma was Harthacanute. In 1018 or 1019 he succeeded to the throne of Denmark and was forced to lead several expeditions to assert his rights there and in the Danish provinces in Norway. In 1028, after an uprising had expelled Olaf II of Norway, Canute was recognized as ruler of that kingdom. He made his son Harthacanute king of Denmark, and in 1029 he made his son Sweyn king of Norway, with Sweyn's mother as regent. She and Sweyn were driven out by 1035, and Norway was ruled by Olaf's son Magnus. Canute established friendly relation...

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Subject: Taxacom Digest, Vol 84, Issue 3

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: "nude" Coccinellid genera? (Robert Mesibov)
   2. Re: "nude" Coccinellid genera? (CSTURMJR at pitt.edu)
   3. Re: "nude" Coccinellid genera? (Stephen Thorpe)
   4. Re: "nude" Coccinellid genera? (Paul Kirk)
   5. Re: "nude" Coccinellid genera? (Robert Mesibov)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 08:44:53 +1100
From: Robert Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?
To: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
Cc: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Message-ID: <20130303084453.43f50cad.mesibov at southcom.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Doug Yanega wrote:

"The combined effect is that in the Internet Era, what used to be a tiny error that only maybe a dozen people in the world ever came across, now can be spread worldwide and find its way into thousands of virtual crevices from which it might never be extracted even if someone comes along later and fixes it. I point this out as yet another example showing the necessity of quality control in taxonomy, and why some folks such as myself are pushing to make registration of names mandatory in the future."

Try a search for 'Subarricrusta biconulata' (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Paradoxosomatidae). It's in GBIF and the Atlas of Living Australia and possibly some derivative Web sources. Not only is the name unpublished, it never even appeared in a manuscript. It's on a museum *label*, put there many years ago by a taxonomist who was going to get around to describing and publishing, but didn't.

There might be a way for a museum to flag names like this before they get scooped up by aggregators, or even better, to avoid having them scooped up, but in this case the name sailed through, and GBIF and ALA can show you a map where the holotype male was collected, and another where the paratype male and female were picked up.

I found 'Subarricrusta biconulata' and a number of other non-existent species in an audit of the GBIF and ALA record sets for Australian millipedes (submitted). I contacted the museums concerned, they updated their databases and in the fullness of time the names will be removed from GBIF and ALA.

Until then, these and I imagine many other non-existent species will enjoy a virtual existence on the Web. Both GBIF and ALA have clearly worded warnings to users in which they disclaim responsibility for content.
--
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
Ph: (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:31:49 -0500
From: CSTURMJR at pitt.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Message-ID:
	<52820fd3e20750aab627d045c85638c8.squirrel at webmail.pitt.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

The following was suggested...

> There might be a way for a museum to flag names like this before they get
> scooped up by aggregators, or even better, to avoid having them scooped
> up, but in this case the name sailed through, and GBIF and ALA can show
> you a map where the holotype male was collected, and another where the
> paratype male and female were picked up.

Is there a way to publish "label names" to make folks  aware of them and
not make them nomina nuda by publishing them.

As an example, I am currently searching through the collection of Victor
Sterki, a malacologist who died in 1933. At the time of his death, he was
working on a revision of the North American Sphaeriidae. He named some
155-160 taxa in this family and in addition there are at least 15 names
that I have found in his collection that have not been published. I know
for a fact that at least one museum in Europe has specimens with some of
these "label names". Can I publish a list of label names, with a caveat
that they are not being published for taxonomic purposes, but just to make
others aware that they may have these taxa in their collections but that
they were never validly described or published?

Regards,
Charlie
.................................................
Charlie Sturm

Treasurer
American Malacological Society

Research Associate - Section of Mollusks
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Associate Professor - Family Medicine
Fellow-American Academy of Family Practice
Fellow-Academy of Wilderness Medicine

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2013 21:17:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?
To: "CSTURMJR at pitt.edu" <CSTURMJR at pitt.edu>,	TAXACOM
	<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Message-ID:
	<1362287822.45938.YahooMailNeo at web161902.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Of course you can! The downside is that possibly aggregators like GBIF etc. might scavenge these names automatically without making their status clear ...
?
Stephen

________________________________
From: "CSTURMJR at pitt.edu" <CSTURMJR at pitt.edu>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Sunday, 3 March 2013 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?

The following was suggested...

> There might be a way for a museum to flag names like this before they get
> scooped up by aggregators, or even better, to avoid having them scooped
> up, but in this case the name sailed through, and GBIF and ALA can show
> you a map where the holotype male was collected, and another where the
> paratype male and female were picked up.

Is there a way to publish "label names" to make folks? aware of them and
not make them nomina nuda by publishing them.

As an example, I am currently searching through the collection of Victor
Sterki, a malacologist who died in 1933. At the time of his death, he was
working on a revision of the North American Sphaeriidae. He named some
155-160 taxa in this family and in addition there are at least 15 names
that I have found in his collection that have not been published. I know
for a fact that at least one museum in Europe has specimens with some of
these "label names". Can I publish a list of label names, with a caveat
that they are not being published for taxonomic purposes, but just to make
others aware that they may have these taxa in their collections but that
they were never validly described or published?

Regards,
Charlie
.................................................
Charlie Sturm

Treasurer
American Malacological Society

Research Associate - Section of Mollusks
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Associate Professor - Family Medicine
Fellow-American Academy of Family Practice
Fellow-Academy of Wilderness Medicine

_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
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The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org/

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

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 07:47:24 +0000
From: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "CSTURMJR at pitt.edu"
	<CSTURMJR at pitt.edu>, TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Message-ID:
	<F5D52E6BEA9E81439E26E3051A9C6F5502D7FB18C32B at KEXCH00.ad.kew.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Am I missing something here ...? Is not the status of a name determined by searching the appriopriate nomenclator for the link to the article/book/monography where Code compliance (i.e. is the name available) can be determined. Yes? Might it therefore be more productive to focus on the task of ensuring the nomenclator is available than trying to control what appears on the web - the later sounds distinctly Canute'ish

Paul
________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe [stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz]
Sent: 03 March 2013 05:17
To: CSTURMJR at pitt.edu; TAXACOM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?

Of course you can! The downside is that possibly aggregators like GBIF etc. might scavenge these names automatically without making their status clear ...

Stephen

________________________________
From: "CSTURMJR at pitt.edu" <CSTURMJR at pitt.edu>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Sunday, 3 March 2013 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?

The following was suggested...

> There might be a way for a museum to flag names like this before they get
> scooped up by aggregators, or even better, to avoid having them scooped
> up, but in this case the name sailed through, and GBIF and ALA can show
> you a map where the holotype male was collected, and another where the
> paratype male and female were picked up.

Is there a way to publish "label names" to make folks  aware of them and
not make them nomina nuda by publishing them.

As an example, I am currently searching through the collection of Victor
Sterki, a malacologist who died in 1933. At the time of his death, he was
working on a revision of the North American Sphaeriidae. He named some
155-160 taxa in this family and in addition there are at least 15 names
that I have found in his collection that have not been published. I know
for a fact that at least one museum in Europe has specimens with some of
these "label names". Can I publish a list of label names, with a caveat
that they are not being published for taxonomic purposes, but just to make
others aware that they may have these taxa in their collections but that
they were never validly described or published?

Regards,
Charlie
.................................................
Charlie Sturm

Treasurer
American Malacological Society

Research Associate - Section of Mollusks
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Associate Professor - Family Medicine
Fellow-American Academy of Family Practice
Fellow-Academy of Wilderness Medicine

_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org/

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

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.
_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org

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

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 21:22:29 +1100
From: Robert Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] "nude" Coccinellid genera?
To: P.Kirk at kew.org
Cc: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Message-ID: <20130303212229.b754ba89.mesibov at southcom.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Paul Kirk wrote:

"Am I missing something here ...? Is not the status of a name determined by
searching the appriopriate nomenclator for the link to the
article/book/monography where Code compliance (i.e. is the name available) can
be determined. Yes? Might it therefore be more productive to focus on the task
of ensuring the nomenclator is available than trying to control what appears on
the web - the later sounds distinctly Canute'ish"

So we need an all-names catalogue, which Catalogue of Life attempts to be, and Wikispecies aims to be. The catalogue can then be used by either the producer of Web content (a museum, say, or GBIF) or the consumer of Web content (someone who's found a Web checklist of all the Hemiptera in their region, and wants to know if the names are current, correctly spelled, etc). Sounds like a good idea, Paul, but as a regular reader of Taxacom posts you will be aware that the idea is a long way from becoming reality.

ALA uses expert-compiled Australian national species lists as a first check of what it lists, and Catalogue of Life as a backup. In my audit paper I show that this checking doesn't always work. I don't know what GBIF checks, but it interprets code names as real species names. For example, the data provider database has the code-name Myallosoma 'wagga' (GBIF Scientific name field) and this appears as Myallosoma wagga in the GBIF Scientific name (Interpreted) field. So far as I know a GBIF search doesn't look through 'interpreted' names, but it's a curious thing to do.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
Ph: (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
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Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
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The entire Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:
Visit: http://taxacom.markmail.org
Or use a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your-search-terms-here

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.

End of Taxacom Digest, Vol 84, Issue 3
**************************************