[Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

[Richard Pyle]

Hi All,

I've already made clear my bias, and the last thing I want to do is play salesman for GNUB vs. other solutions.  I almost didn't respond at all to John's initial email, but he seemed interested in a platform that allowed end users to contribute directly -- which is really the only reason I mentioned it at all.

I intend to refrain from commenting further, but I did want to make a couple of quick points:

- ZooBank is one small window on GNUB.  The latter contains 627K+ taxon name usages, which go well beyond zoology, and well beyond nomenclatural acts (i.e., they include synonymies, alternate combinations, alternate classifications, misspellings, etc.).  These usages are linked to 107K+ literature citations.  ZooBank is the only visible face of GNUB right now because that is the only part that has received adequate funding for developing a public user interface. Our next grant proposal should expand that significantly (if funded).

- The main focus of the grant proposal we are about to submit is targeted specifically at capturing legacy content, which is why the planned project is tightly integrating GNI (17M+ name-strings), GNUB and CoL (1.6M+ vetted names), and at least one major taxon-specific database.

- It will never be GNUB's job to provide accepted names vs. synonyms, coherent taxonomic hierarchies.  This is, and will continue to be, the primary role for CoL.  What GNUB provides is the raw, objective facts upon which such synthesized, usable checklists are built.

A lot of people who don't regularly operate in this space (and even many who do) are under the misconception that all these databases are alternatives to each other.  A few certainly have broad overlap, but in most cases the focus of each is largely different. The trick -- which is slowly starting to happen -- is to sharpen the focus of each major initiative, reduce the amount of redundancy/overlap that does exist, and leverage the complementary strengths through tighter integration among them.  Until we (sensu lato) do that, this same conversation will continue to come up every few years for decades to come, just as it has been for the past few decades.

It's outside the scope of this thread (or my available time) for me to elaborate on this point any further, so perhaps others can do so if people don't agree.

Aloha,
Rich


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of
> Tony Rees
> Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2016 8:57 PM
> To: Stephen Thorpe
> Cc: taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] taxonomic names databases
> 
> Hi Stephen, John,
> 
> That's great - I applaud the facility to rapidly add names, authors and works, and
> obtain ZooBank IDs for the same for use elsewhere, and appreciate that as
> zoology moves forward this will become more the norm (and/or automatically
> carried out) on new name creation.
> 
> My reservations regard the extent to which this may provide (1) ~~"complete"
> names lists, and (2) the same arranged in useable checklists (accepted names vs.
> synonyms, coherent taxonomic hierarchies) any time "soon". Unless there are
> scores of names waiting in the wings to be uploaded, perhaps as "placeholder"
> names - currently ZooBank quotes 163,000 "nomenclatural acts" cf. at least 5
> million published species names and 0.5m genera, to say nothing of higher taxa -
> and their is a taxonomic super-reference constructed over all this employing the
> relationships between these names acccording to even one taxonomic opinion,
> much less several - ZooBank seems to me to be a lot premature in staking any
> claim to these aspects in comparison to CoL and the other "big products"
> already in this space, which as we have already seen are themselves lacking
> content and/or may be out of date for at least some groups.
> 
> So to me, John's original question still stands - where best to create and maintain
> taxon lists (preferably in a collaborative environment with good database
> structures and IT support) in a place where content entered will ideally also flow
> through to other systems rather than just form another little data silo, as well as
> having sufficient community engagement for data input and export as needed.
> 
> Since I believe John is in the USA (or even if he is not), he might also find that ITIS
> is receptive to adding any data he may care to send them, or letting him enter it
> remotely. Certainly data entered into ITIS would be highly visible and not subject
> to potential future loss, and as we know ITIS is a keen partner in the "names
> sharing" space as well as a contributor to Catalogue of Life. Just a thought...
> 
> Regards - Tony
> 
> Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
> https://about.me/TonyRees
> 
> 
> 
> On 21 August 2016 at 15:52, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> wrote:
> 
> > John,
> > I have just now registered your Endoclita fahringeri on ZooBank:
> > http://zoobank.org/References/6B36AB69-E80B-45C5-B383-590AA8478EC4
> > Cheers,
> > Stephen
> >
> >
> >
> >
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