[Taxacom] Finding your species in Mendeley

[Wolfgang Lorenz]

Dear All,
the term "nomenclator" seems to me a bit misleading when it comes to
zoological names.
Wonderful to have names linked to original publications, but if you want to
bring that information into current context, i.e. with annotations such as
which names are accepted valid names and which are subjective synonyms, you
need to elaborate on a current classification, - at least in provisional
concise checklist style. You cannot expect a fit-for-use checklist emerges
by itself while compiling published information. In any larger group of
animals, you will have updated and outdated information, narrow and wide
taxonomic concepts at all ranks, that you need to bring together and where
your taxonomist's judgement is needed.
What we can do for zoological names is an authoritative ZooBank, - a
perfectly stable nomenclatural basis limited to the 'realm' of
nomenclature. The task of bringing that basic zoological nomenclature and
all usages of these names into a current context, that's the task of
taxonomists...

Best regards,
Wolfgang

---------------------------
Wolfgang M.T.Lorenz, Tutzing, Germany


2011/12/8 Paul van Rijckevorsel <dipteryx at freeler.nl>

> From: "Jim Croft" <jim.croft at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 10:00 PM
>
>
> +1 on the 'manually'. It will take years, in fact we have already
> spent years on it, but it is a finite and doable task.
>
> The key issue is one of trust. We might use an item or link a computer
> found but we will check it. Entries by competent humans, on the other
> hand, are 'trusted' and considered verified, i.e. the link has been
> followed and the right thing is at the end of it. If we are going the
> do the 'let the computer find an add stuff' thing, a 'verified flag is
> critically important.
>
> Nomenclators are the foundation of everythng we do and as such they
> are not allowed to be wrong. They can be incomplete as a work in
> progress, even ambiguous if the ambiguity is explained, but they are
> not allowed to be wrong.
>
> Find a mistake in APNI, if we can't convince ourselves it is not a
> mistake, a pleasant and sentient human WILL fix it... Find something
> missing and we will unmiss it, but this might take a little longer...
>
> ***
> This sounds great as a statement of principle, but still, over time
> I have come to associate the APNI component of IPNI as the
> least useful of the three, with the least depth and the most errors.
> Also it is a pity that there does not seem to be a way to have
> errors in APNI corrected, as opposed to the IK (easiest) or
> the GCI.
>
> Paul
>
>
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