[Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

[Tony Rees]

Hi Rod,

In my view it's the same problem just viewed from different starting
points. In an ideal world and with unlimited resources, one would subscribe
to all the taxonomic literature, pick out all the new names and new
treatments of existing ones, and database the lot i.e. literature and names
together - just like Zoological Record does (mostly). Lesser mortals or
"labour of love" projects that cannot afford such a complete approach
concentrate on the areas they find most tractable and interesting - e.g.
compile the names first, then look for the relevant literature, or vice
versa. It's not an either/or. And at present, probably the percentage of
names compiled (somewhere) is somewhat ahead of the percentage of
literature citations compiled (except maybe in botany, but those folks are
just odd (<humour></humour>), so standing on the shoulders of giants and
all, that is maybe a task that has a sooner chance of completion.

Not that I disagree with the points you make of course regarding names with
poor provenance. But at least that can be a prompt to look further for the
same (something I find myself doing fairly often...)

Just my 2 cents,

Cheers - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://about.me/TonyRees

On 27 August 2016 at 16:13, Roderic Page <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi Tony,
>
> I'd argue that focus sing on getting. A list of names alone is not enough,
> I'd spin the problem around and say we should get the taxonomic literature,
> because that contains the names linked to evidence. We're awash in
> unsupported lists of names, which we endlessly recycle up the food chain
> until the end up in places like GBIF and nobody has a clue where they came
> from or whether they are actual names.
>
> I think we're still proceeding as if the literature was physical and we
> need to create 5x3 index cards of names. We can do a lot better than that.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rod
>
>