[Taxacom] Chameleons, GBIF, and the Red List

Tue Aug 26 02:56:06 CDT 2014

Rod,

Your proposal is indeed elegant, but what about using two separate general
types of annotations, e.g.: (1) Corrections/Additions and (2) Comments
("sticky notes")?

The Type 1 (Annotations=Corrections/Additions) can go straight to
improve/amend the data (after approval or not is a different story), for
example adding geocoordinates for a well-known locality or adding a
collector's name missing on label data but known from other source, etc.

Annotations Type 2 (Annotations=Comments) could be associated with the
original data or with Type 1 Annotations, e.g., "velvet worms cannot live
in the ocean, correct geocoordinates for this locality", or "this locality
might be wrongly spelled", etc.

No need to explain that Type 2 annotations could be based on a rich
controlled vocabulary of statements, besides the free text option, which
will allow machine processing of a part of the process, including automated
verification of the original data in some particular cases. For example,
annotation of the kind  "Now in different genus"  could automatically query
a trusted taxonomy source (CoL, GNUB, etc,) and display all possible
versions and validity status of that name and its combinations.

Regards,
Lyubomir

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 11:32 PM, Chuck Miller <Chuck.Miller at mobot.org>
wrote:

> Rod,
> I see what you are thinking.
>
> I'm thinking too much about the alternate views that seem to always come
> up in comments about taxonomic data, even right here on Taxacom.  So, an
> annotation thread could be something like:
> "Now in different genus"
> "No way, respectfully what century are you from?. It's not even a species."
> "Maybe they meant Africa."
> "Yeh, in Namibia it was split and revised to Y, I think."
> "The phylogeny for Y is totally different. It's now in Z. Does no one read
> my work? Taxonomic tyranny!"
> "Consider this DOI that refers to new collections and it seems to
> contradict all y'all."
>
> What does "social" annotation turn into?  Lots of useful information but
> if it starts being contradictory or overlapping, can it be databased and
> which contradiction is the primary?  Hopefully, annotation of localities
> could be straightforward as in your example.
>
> Chuck
>
>
> From: Roderic Page [mailto:Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk]
> Sent: Monday, August 25, 2014 2:37 PM
> To: Chuck Miller
> Cc: TAXACOM; Bob Mesibov
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Chameleons, GBIF, and the Red List
>
> Hi Chuck,
>
> So was I  sorry if I was being obscure.
>
> My take on the TripAdvisor model is that it is like this:
>
> [Source]
>    |
>    +- comment1 "Now in different genus"
>    |
>    +- comment2 "Maybe they meant Africa?"
>
> The comments can have social scores, badges, etc. Useful, but not really
> what I'm after. How do we get information from the comments? How do we move
> information from comments to the source? What if the source has
> insufficient resources to respond? We are left with source data that is
> being displayed, despite (say) comments saying "this data is wrong".
>
> The "social data" model differs in that it doesn't privilege any one
> particular source of information (so it's not like the "sticky notes"
> TripAdvisor model), nor does it insist on one summary view (like a Wiki
> where the latest edit wins). Instead, everyone gets to write to the
> database, and nobody can overwrite what someone else writes. So the
> "primary source" isn't privileged, but at the same time its data can't be
> overwritten.
>
> What I have in mind is something like this:
>
> [ ... ]
>    +- source
>    |
>    +- comment1
>    |
>    +- comment2
>
> The source is one of a number of "comments", and the comments are not
> simply bits of text but actual data, e.g.
>
> [ ... ]
>    +- "Mt. Brandenberg" [source]
>    |
>    +- lat -21.1, long 14.35 [GEOLocate]
>    |
>    +- "Mt. Brandenberg, Namibia" [Chuck Miller]
>
> Then we can do a bunch of things. We might just accept the primary source,
> or we might defer to your annotation, or we might synthesise them together
> a present a (hopefully) enhanced view of the data.
>
> The switch in perspective is from "I am the authority for this record and
> you may comment on it" to "together we will build the record".
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
> College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
> Graham Kerr Building
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>
> Email:  Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>
> Tel:  +44 141 330 4778
> Skype:  rdmpage
> Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/rdmpage
> LinkedIn:  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rdmpage
> Twitter:  http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog:  http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> ORCID:  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767
> Citations:  http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4Z5WABAAAAAJ
>
> On 25 Aug 2014, at 19:09, Chuck Miller <Chuck.Miller at mobot.org<mailto:
> Chuck.Miller at mobot.org>> wrote:
>
>
> Rod,
> I was referring more to the commenting & rating aspects of Yelp &
> TripAdvisor when you mentioned a "social" approach.
>
> In TripAdvisor, each commenter makes a rating of a record (a hotel or
> restaurant in this case), then the individual ratings are summarized into
> summary scores.  The comments are displayed together, both positive and
> negative, for a record.  The commenters get "badges" but only for the
> quantity of their posts.  But, there are also "votes" on the comments by
> the users of the data if a comment is considered "helpful".  The records
> are ranked #1 to #Last based on the ratings. And finally there can be a
> response by the "owner" of the record.
>
> All of it adds up to "social annotation" - a collective think without
> rigor or standardization.  And for hotels and restaurants, it's very
> helpful.  Would it be as helpful for biodiversity data records?
>
> Chuck
>
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