[Taxacom] Pop article on taxonomy's decline

[Stephen Thorpe]

Frank,

>The magnitude of this task is hardly imaginable. Later in the process of ZooBank 
>development, we need to determine best strategies how to achieve the goal of 
>validated data

I am deeply unsettled by this approach ... you are leaving the "difficult" (to 
say the least) decisions for well down the track, with little real idea how the 
"validation" might realistically be achieved. I fear that you will just end up 
being yet another dumping ground for dodgy data ...

Cheers,

Stephen




________________________________
From: "Frank.Krell at dmns.org" <Frank.Krell at dmns.org>
To: Tony.Rees at csiro.au; p.kirk at cabi.org; stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz; 
neale at bishopmuseum.org; tillier at mnhn.fr; mesibov at southcom.com.au; 
deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Sat, 29 January, 2011 9:56:41 AM
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Pop article on taxonomy's decline

Tony,

yes, we are in discussions with Zoological Record exploring whether and how a 
collaboration can be established.
The retrospective registration part is a massive task and currently deferred to 
a later time, when the new, user-friendly registration module of ZooBank is 
established and accepted.
It is probably no problem to import available data from secondary sources, 
online or printed (Catalogues etc.) into ZooBank, but then we would have just 
another database full of data of variable and unpredictable reliability. This 
might be, however, a first step. Then we (the user and contributor community) 
need to discuss how we vet the data, assigning them levels of reliability. We 
know that some cataloguers are anal enough to produce quite reliable catalogues, 
others aren't. The last and final quality control would be a 
verifying/validating step, i.e. a party different from the source of the data 
needs to validate the data. This party would work on behalf of the ICZN. This is 
the main property that would make ZooBank different from existing name 
databases: In the end, all nomenclatural data will be correct, validated, hence 
authoritative, easy to check with all the sources (original literature) online 
available.

The magnitude of this task is hardly imaginable. Later in the process of ZooBank 
development, we need to determine best strategies how to achieve the goal of 
validated data. By involvement of the (shrinking) taxonomic community, by 
involvement of validation centers (e.g. ZoolRecord), or by seeking massive 
funding that allows the ICZN to employ 20 full time "validators". Currently we 
are more concerned to provide a convincing proof of concept for the registration 
of newly published names and are working on a new, user-friendly version of 
ZooBank.

Cheers

Frank


Dr Frank T. Krell 
Curator of Entomology 
Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
Chair, ICZN ZooBank Committee
Department of Zoology 
Denver Museum of Nature & Science 
2001 Colorado Boulevard 
Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA 
Frank.Krell at dmns.org 
Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244 
Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492 
http://www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/frank-krell





-----Original Message-----
From: Tony.Rees at csiro.au [mailto:Tony.Rees at csiro.au] 
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 1:23 PM
To: Frank T. Krell; p.kirk at cabi.org; stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz; 
neale at bishopmuseum.org; tillier at mnhn.fr; mesibov at southcom.com.au; 
deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Pop article on taxonomy's decline

Dear Frank,

I am of course aware of the potential benefits of ZooBank, but conscious that 
both the newly established taxa (looking forwards, i.e. post some sort of 
registration acceptance) and the legacy taxa (looking backwards) need to be 
included. Is there any development of a strategic approach to how the latter 
might be achieved?

Regards - Tony Rees (hoping that ZooBank and Zoological Record might even work 
together some day)

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On 
Behalf Of Frank.Krell at dmns.org [Frank.Krell at dmns.org]
Sent: Saturday, 29 January 2011 4:59 AM
To: p.kirk at cabi.org; stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz; neale at bishopmuseum.org; 
tillier at mnhn.fr; mesibov at southcom.com.au; deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Pop article on taxonomy's decline

ZooBank, although further down the line, could do it for animals (excluding 
fungi :-)) if mandatory registration becomes acceptable to the community, and 
when it is further developed.
Subject to funding to be obtained, ZooBank intends to link or even archive to 
electronic version of the original descriptions. In the long term this would 
mean a complete database of available names and their descriptions.
We are working on it.

Frank


Dr Frank T. Krell
Curator of Entomology
Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
Chair, ICZN ZooBank Committee
Department of Zoology
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
2001 Colorado Boulevard
Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA
Frank.Krell at dmns.org
Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244
Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492
http://www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/frank-krell