[Taxacom] Species Cite: linking scientific names to publications and taxonomists

[Tony Rees]

Hi Rod,

Not answering my own questions as posed above, but on a more philosophical
note... just wondering what you see as an "end point" for this object
(data) linking exercise...

You talk about having all the references in Wikidata as things you (and
anyone else) can then link to. Of course, one could envisage a model
whereby WoRMS or IRMNG could also port their references to Wikidata at some
point - assuming they are not already there - then call those up as needed
to display in taxon pages. Enter once, use many times, a good principle.
(Also would enable e.g. WoRMS and IRMNG to avoid making duplicate entries
for the same reference, as is currently the case).

Then, why not just put the taxon names into Wikidata as well, with links to
the references in which they were originally published... I am guessing
some of those are there already. Then all you would need would be to build
some taxon name viewer to sit over the top.

Then, the Wikidata references could reference Wikidata entries for each
contributing author, and those could reference an Orcid (at least for the
living ones, not sure about the non-living), giving the "persons" element
... provided that these were populated of course.

So in essence I am saying, can you not just outsource all the content and
links between data items, for example to Wikidata in this instance, let the
"community" maintain them there, then just build a nice tool to sit over
the top and display what is needed in answer to user queries? If this means
porting the items and links you already have in your own system to there,
is that not a good thing?

Just wondering,

Best - Tony


On Tue, 3 Aug 2021 at 16:26, Roderic Page via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> Hi Geoff,
>
> Apologies for the mischaracterisation, you can probably tell I’m not a
> major WoRMS user, although I do occasionally spend time there tracking down
> names of freshwater and terrestrial molluscs.
>
> Yes, WoRMS includes DOIs and links. I don’t have a full copy of the WoRMS
> references, but based on what I have (~150,000) around 10% of references
> have a DOI, and less than 5% are linked to BHL.
>
> These numbers give us a sense of the scale of the task, given that WoRMS
> has an active community of editors (I’m guessing WoRMS might claim to have
> the largest community of editors among taxonomic databases?). So much of
> the biodiversity literature across our databases remains unconnected and
> undigitised, and the work of making those connections is not fun (although
> strangely satisfying).
>
> I’m focussing my editing efforts on Wikidata. I note that Wikidata has a
> property for WoRMS sources which enables references in Wikidata to be
> linked to WoRMS, so there is a mechanism in place to link records in the
> two projects. My expectation is that these links will uncover information
> in both sources that the other wasn’t aware of.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rod
>