[Taxacom] another ebay auction of naming rights

[Fred Schueler]

On 10/21/2015 2:32 PM, Doug Yanega wrote:

> Every package of specimens I mail has a big label on it saying "NO
> COMMERCIAL VALUE" - but that ceases to be true, at least in some
> people's view, I'm sure, if they are used as the basis for an auction.

* how is this different from putting "NO COMMERCIAL VALUE" on specimens 
back in the day when museums paid collectors for specimens? I know that 
payment for specimens is an extinct practice, but we did put "NO 
COMMERCIAL VALUE" on the shipments, because the specimens' value was 
scientific (contributing to knowledge) rather than commercial 
(contributing to fiscal gain motivated by the desire for fiscal gain), 
even though we might have been being paid for the shipment. It seems to 
me that auctioning names (however creepy this may be in other ways) is 
no more commercial a way of supporting research than applying for grants 
or crowd-sourced funding, and calling the auction a pollutingly 
commercial event suggests that paying taxonomists a salary also makes 
their work commercial.

no idea what "ABS" means in this context, by the way,

fred.
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