Taxacom: Tropicos and gender of names

Wed Feb 9 12:52:10 CST 2022

Thanks, Scott.  I definitely see where you’re coming from, but I think any effort to use the text-string literal “name” as a “key” in the sense of digital databases (i.e., “Primary Key”) is not going to bear fruit.  The only context in which it makes sense is how GNI does it, where the literal UTF-8 character string (or perhaps more accurately, the hash of it) itself is the “thing” being identified (i.e., the subset of all UTF-8 character strings that have ever been used as a label representing a scientific name of an organism).  The context in which such identified “things” are useful is for tasks such as hunting for taxonomic name usages within OCR text from BHL scanned literature pages (for example).

So while I agree with you that it would not be impossible to use text-string scientific names as a database “key” for something other than a particular UTF-8 character string, I believe that it is sufficiently impractical that almost all use cases would find the cost/benefit ratio of doing so to be less desirable than the cost/benefit ratio of using other values as keys, with the text-string name being simply a property of the identified “thing”.

What text-string names are exceedingly GOOD for is serving as “finding aids” (to borrow a concept from the Library & Archive world) to discover information about biodiversity.  While these text-string names will not be perfect, they work extremely well for that purpose in the vast, vast, vast majority of cases.  To see this in action, type your favorite scientific name into a Google search box, and in the vast majority of cases the returned results will be relevant to the organism you had in mind.

Aloha,

Rich

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

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From: Scott Thomson <scott.thomson321 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, February 9, 2022 8:05 AM
To: Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
Cc: TAXACOM <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Tropicos and gender of names

I think some misinterpreted my comment on recipe for a 3 year old.

Its tongue in cheek comment said to software eng students to appreciate coding, was taught with OO coding.

I can imagine how you could do this and it requires a little more imagination than most databases use. Each taxon needs a key and as the names are not immutable it makes it difficult though not impossible for the name to be the key. To get around the non-immutable name issue is doable with queries and a second database to reference language changes.

Not impossible.

Only AI can get better than current system.

Cheers Scott

On Wed, Feb 9, 2022, 2:47 PM Richard Pyle via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu <mailto:taxacom at lists.ku.edu> > wrote:

> It seems much simpler to wait until databasers grow up and can handle
> concepts beyond those aimed to fit in the grasp of a 3-year old?

EXACTLY!  The databases should be designed to accommodate the information as it exists. It's a mistake to modify the information as it exists to accommodate the needs of databases.  We should not allow the tail to wag the dog...

Aloha,
Rich
Adolescent* databaser

[*better than a toddler databaser, but suffering from unwarranted & unjustified self-confidence/self-righteousness, and eager to eventually grow up to the point of full maturity and wisdom]

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704
Office: (808) 848-4115;  Fax: (808) 847-8252
eMail: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org <mailto:deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> 
BishopMuseum.org
Our Mission: Bishop Museum inspires our community and visitors through the exploration and celebration of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

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