[Taxacom] ICZN and Wikispecies (was Re: "nude" Coccinellid genera?)

[Richard Pyle]

No doubt! But Wikispecies is not a structured database, and as such, has
some limitations.  For example, can you quickly tell me how many species
were described from 1850-1900 using only Wikispecies?  How about generate a
checklist of all the fishes of Fiji?  Can you do an analysis over time of
how certain names have been treated as valid or as synonyms?  These are the
kinds of queries (and many, many, many, many more) that are extremely easy
to do with a structured database.

 

Don't get me wrong - I think Wikispecies is an extremely valuable component
to the whole picture (the only reason I didn't include it in the list on my
email, is I didn't want you to challenge me in lumping it in with the
"alphabet soup").

 

The days of "may way of organizing information is better than your way"
should be long behind us by now.  All of the things that currently exist
server a valuable purpose; otherwise they wouldn't exist (OK, that's not
necessarily true - but it probably true in the vast majority of cases).  So
let's please move beyond the simpleton perspective of "this way is better",
and move more towards finding ways to increase the value of *ALL* of these
systems by connecting them together.

 

As for page histories - the data are definitely there (we have a robust edit
log system).  It's just a matter of adding it to the public pages.  One of
the many features that is on the "to do" list.

 

But I agree - ZooBank is not in the business of taxonomy.  However, many
other database systems are (CoL, WoRMS, ALA, EoL, etc., etc.), so by
connecting them all together (including Wikispecies), the whole adds up to
much more than the sum of the parts.

 

Aloha,

Rich

 

From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz] 
Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 6:35 PM
To: Richard Pyle; 'Lyubomir Penev'
Cc: 'TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU'
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] ICZN and Wikispecies (was Re: "nude" Coccinellid
genera?)

 

Hi Rich,

You can possibly guess what I am going to say in response to that!
Wikispecies offers a currently far more complete "name finding" facility
than ZooBank does, and it includes both strictly nomenclatural (eg.
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Larochelle_%26_Larivi%C3%A8re,_20
13) and taxonomic approaches (eg.
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Moriomorphini).  I contribute to ZooBank
as somewhat of a backup. Both are now more or less on a par in terms of open
edit, though ZooBank does not make public page histories. I believe that
users will prefer the added taxonomic perspective, in addition to purely
nomenclatural, and it will be a very long time indeed before any rival to
Wikispecies can catch up on the mix of these two elements that Wikispecies
currently offers...

Cheers,

Stephen

 

From: Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
To: 'Stephen Thorpe' <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; 'Lyubomir Penev'
<lyubo.penev at gmail.com> 
Cc: "'TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU'" <TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Monday, 11 March 2013 5:22 PM
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] ICZN and Wikispecies (was Re: "nude" Coccinellid
genera?)


Hi Stephen,

> Well, publishers are the main users of ZooBank who gain anything tangible
> from the "services" of ZooBank. They use it to facilitate e-only
publication
> which is nevertheless Code compliant. ZooBank doesn't really offer any
other
> "services" to anyone!

Actually, that's not really true.  From the perspective of many publishers,
it's just one more pain-in-the-backside hurdle that they need to deal with
during their publication workflow.  Frankly I see no reason why ZooBank
benefits them.  Yes, ZooBank is one of the requirements for e-only
publication, but that's not a "service" provided by ZooBank.  E-only
publication would be a lot easier for most publishers if it didn't include
the registration requirement.

THANKFULLY, many publishers and journal editors have been extremely
cooperative and supportive of the concept of ZooBank -- not so much because
of the e-publication thing, but because they recognize the importance of a
stable nomenclature upon which all of biology ultimately depends (at least
in the current paradigm, which has been maintained for the past two and a
half centuries).  In particular, Pensoft, PLoS ONE, Zootaxa, and several
others have been very supportive of ZooBank -- even well before the
e-publication Amendment was passed.

The value of ZooBank to everyone else will come as two things start to
happen:
1) ZooBank gets populated with historical content (Sherborn, Hymenoptera
Name Server, plus many other zoological databases that have expressed
willingness to contribute);

2) The Global Names Architecture services start to ramp up (already
happening)

As for #2, the analogy I always give people for GNA is the DNS system of the
internet.  Everyone on the planet uses it all day long, but without
realizing it.  This is why I see GNA as different from the "alphabet soup".
Most of the big players (CoL, EOL, GBIF, WoRMS, ALA, IPNI, Tropicos, Index
Fungorum, ZooBank, and many, many others) provide valuable services to end
users.  The purpose of GNA is to build a low-level *infrastructure* to allow
all of those existing services interoperate more effectively.  I explained
this in some detail here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSzL2NwRemU

See the slides starting at about 5:20, through 6:35, and again from 8:40
through 10:20.

If we can make both of those things happen, then ZooBank will play one of
the key roles (along with IPNI, IF, MycoBank, and the registry of Bacteria
-- when it goes digital) for anchoring text-string names to metadata-rich,
usage-based data "objects" (Protonyms and other Code-governed actions
involving nomenclature), which themselves serve as keystone records for all
taxon-name-usages (including all taxon concept definitions).

Paddy Patterson has been make the strong and compelling point that we need
to shift our framing of biodiversity informatics away from the realm of
research tools, and more towards universal, foundational, information
infrastructure.  When we start to achieve that vision, a great deal or order
will emerge from the disconnected morass of biodiversity data that we used
to spend hours and hours in the library tracking down, and now spend fewer
hours -- but still many hours -- surfing the web to track down.

As long as we can find a common pathway to bring some sense of cohesion to
all this biodiversity data, I'm confident the money will be there to support
each of the core components and services (including ICZN & ZooBank).  If we
keep to the "data silo" structure, I'll be much less optimistic.

Aloha,
Rich


Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences
Associate Zoologist in Ichthyology
Dive Safety Officer
Department of Natural Sciences, Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817
Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252
email: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html