[Taxacom] Twitter Fwd: Nature needs names: 60 new dragonflies from Africa

[Stephen Thorpe]

I wonder if all that effort could be better spent on a global biodiversity database which tracks all new taxa as they are published? ZooBank is at least something along these vague lines. I'm not sure anybody has an interest in all newly described taxa, so it is important that they can effectively search for what they are interested in. There are many abstracting databases which offer this service to more or less of an extent. But then we are away from publicity and back to academia again, but maybe that is how it should be?

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 13/12/15, Geoff Read <gread at actrix.gen.nz> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Twitter Fwd: Nature needs names: 60 new dragonflies from	Africa
 To: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Received: Sunday, 13 December, 2015, 12:34 PM
 
 
 Doug,
 
 Yes #newspecies is quite often used on Twitter as a
 hashtag.  Not,
 unfortunately by Zootaxa as yet (hint). Zootaxa nicely tweet
 individually
 each of their daily output of new papers just after
 publication around
 midday New Zealand time.  ZooKeys tweets but doesn't
 seem to use
 #newspecies either.  Maybe someone already runs a
 new-taxonomy twitter
 list based on adding to it the biology taxonomy publishers
 who tweet?  I
 haven't come across it yet. People follow the biology
 publishers they are
 interested in anyway, but it would be a good idea to have a
 list for the
 new species publishers.
 
 An account to follow, @newspecies, which tweeted/retweeted
 new species
 papers would be great, but someone would have to dedicate
 themselves to
 the work, rather than content accumulating automatically as
 in a list (and
 there's a person with a private account sitting on that
 @newspecies handle
 already. Same with @taxonomy).
 
 Geoff
 
 
 Doug Yanega wrote:
 "That being said, please do note that I'm explicitly
 referring to
  mainstream media and press releases. *In a different
 context entirely*,
  I think it would be wonderful to have a visible public
 place, like a
  twitter feed with some catchy title like #newspecies, where
 people DID
  actually post every single paper published anywhere, to
 impress upon
  folks just how much is still being discovered. In the
 former context,
  you're effectively trying to shove your discoveries into
 people's faces,
  and using loads of hype in the process; in the latter
 context, only
  people actively subscribing to that twitter feed will see
 the constant
  bombardment (it's "opt-in"), and what they'd be getting
 *from* that feed
  is basically hype-free links to the papers (you can't fit a
 lot of hype
  into 140 characters!). Having a feed that posts every
 paper, from all
  sources, for all taxa from fungi to dinosaurs to insects,
 would also
  help level the proverbial playing field, rather than giving
 exposure
  only to those researchers/institutions with the resources
 or inclination
  to produce and promote press releases"
 
 
 ________________________________________
 From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 on behalf of Doug
 Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
 Sent: 12 December 2015 13:28
 To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Fwd: Nature needs names: 60 new
 dragonflies from
 Africa
 
 As rarely as I may agree with Stephen, in this case he and I
 perceive
 the same problem, though I think it might be better
 explained, and put
 into perspective.
 
 [...]
 
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