[Taxacom] Caveat emptor (raw taxanomic data)

[Stephen Thorpe]

well I guess that as a major contributor myself to a biodiversity information 
source (Wikispecies) which attempts to be completely open and honest about data 
quality, those others that trade on spurious greater authority really annoy me 
...




________________________________
From: Karl Magnacca <kmagnacca at wesleyan.edu>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Cc: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Sent: Thu, 26 August, 2010 7:34:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Caveat emptor (raw taxanomic data)

On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> I suspect that some of the big funders and likely serious end users
> of biodiversity informatics databases want more than anything to
> avoid the need for 'Caveat emptor', and actually think that that
> is what they are funding/going to get. They want expertly vetted
> information which they can rely on, and use to make conservation/
> biosecurity management decisions etc.

Well of course everyone would *like* that.  But no amount of wishing
is going to make it happen.  I'd like it if morphological
taxonomists would not write descriptions that bear little
resemblance to their type specimens, just like I'd like it if
molecular systematists didn't misidentify their specimens.  But both
things happen, and will continue to happen.

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Hawaii-Hilo