[Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

[Jonathan Rees]

On Aug 27, 2016, at 6:36 PM, Tony Rees <tonyrees49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> As I mentioned, the Catalogue of Life sources its spiders taxonomic names component from the World Spider Catalog so if you download CoL, you should get that element of the data (presumably there is an option to filter by data source therein). I don't think you can download the entire database in its native format but that is common to most such systems.

Tony, 

No disagreement at all. My quibble was not about the ability to access, but about whether access was "excellent". I looked at the CoL site and could not find a download link, just instructions saying you have to send them email ( http://catalogueoflife.org/content/annual-checklist-archive ), agree to terms of use (that's a kind of legal contract), and submit to an audit ( http://catalogueoflife.org/content/terms-use ). Obviously it is possible to get the information, and it's great that the DVD and so on are available after interacting with a human, and I'm sure they have their reasons for doing business the way they do, but that's all beside the point. With respect to access, "excellence" (as opposed to "good" or "fair")  hinges on how easy it is to get access, and email + contract + audit does not qualify as easy.

Jonathan