Taxacom: Fwd: Single official lists of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega many proposals to this list)

[Tony Rees]

I will just add a few follow-up comments regarding the creation of global
lists at species, and genus level...

1: Global species checklist - in my view this can only ever be achieved via
a federated model - either by aggregating content from external lists (The
Catalogue of Life model) or by co-opting relevant experts to enter their
content into a common system (the WoRMS model) - both will work. In fact
since the CoL is already using WoRMS as a content provider for some of its
taxonomic sectors, perhaps the result will always be a hybrid of some kind.
"Governance" of the list content in this (these) model/s comes down to the
opinion and preferences of the designated editor or editors for particular
groups, which is probably as it should be.

I do not see any harm in occasional "snapshots" of particular sectors being
reproduced as publications in the scientific literature, for the purposes
of recognition and building the compiler/editor's publications profile, as
well as providing an alternative route for users to access the content for
reading and citation purposes. What is harder to do - not impossible of
course - is to use publications as the primary repository rather than
entering content into electronic storage of some kind - doubles the effort
required when the list/s are needed in some kind of electronic form other
than a pdf style document.

Also I am 100% sure that no one person can oversee this content on account
of the quantum of names involved - probably between 5 and 10 million
including synonyms, increasing at over 20,000 per year according to recent
records, so "division of labour" will always be required.

The CoL model of course relies on external persons or facilities to be
compiling lists of content for supply up the CoL pipeline, so will always
fall short in those sectors for which no suitable external "aggregating"
resources exist. Therefore will always be incomplete at species level in
the medium term so far as I can see, unless anyone has any bright ideas to
the contrary...

2: Global genus checklists. This is a slightly different beast in that the
quantum of names to be handled is an order or so of magnitude smaller (say
0.5k vs 5k+), and significant resources do already exist that treat "almost
all" names in both botany and zoology (both sensu lato), up to certain
cut-off dates at least, as well as genera of prokaryotes and viruses,
should these be required (although taken all together, these too are
increasing at >2k/year, which is in the order of 7 new genera for every day
of the year). However the smaller size of the task, plus the availability
of external, pre-compiled resources, makes this look tractable for even a
single person project at first glance. Actually this is the task I set
myself back in 2006, imagining that it could be accomplished in maybe 6
months of part time activity. Well, 17 years later it is still ongoing
(with a little help from a colleague or 2) but I (we) have achieved the
500,000 barrier this year for the first time (May 2023 release) with more
catch-up work to come (around a further 7k zoological names to add from the
period 2015-2022 approx, plus other more minor cath-ups due in different
groups as well). SSo at least we are *close* to having the "global list"
that various other contributors to this thread have envisaged. What happens
to the list when I decide I no longer wish to be involved in its
maintenance is of course a different question, since I parted ways with my
employer i.e. official science agency back in 2014, as well as reaching one
of the post retirement "grand old ages" not long ago and probably need to
wind down my efforts in that respect "real soon now" :)

You can see some summary statistics as well as a "snapshot" of my project
(as at 2020, already 3 more years have passed!) via
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mapress.com%2Fmt%2Farticle%2Fview%2Fmegataxa.1.2.3&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C4c4a0172d0244677f0c408db7d20a7a1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638241351437249888%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=WsqzhRTCNfyh7eRJnP4iS2Wpw5eB7wAgPrymDQsQX3M%3D&reserved=0 if interested, also
can visit the latest version of the data content via https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irmng.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C4c4a0172d0244677f0c408db7d20a7a1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638241351437249888%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8kVHDmT08cEiqWDoGHog1sQrgJ1Ud7nND8sNR%2Bk51PY%3D&reserved=0 . There
is some species-level content held too (approaching 2 million names) but I
do not set much store by that since most of that content was entered over
10 years ago and has not been maintained since.

In any case, if there *were* to be a global genera list with associated
gender assignment of any sort, this would be a logical place to start (also
per some preliminary discussions already with relevant interest parties...)
. However moving forward, the list would slowly lose its currency if it
were not actively maintained into the future under some model yet to be
developed.

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.me%2FTonyRees&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C4c4a0172d0244677f0c408db7d20a7a1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638241351437249888%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=oK7YitiQnw94HWKLNXc57tBfrzXIShYoiLbNnh%2BRgOY%3D&reserved=0


On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 at 06:24, Jose Fernandez-Triana <cnc.braconidae at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Tony,
>
> Thanks a lot for your comments about my message. Indeed what I was trying
> to bring to the attention of the group was not necessarily the gender
> agreement topic (which has been discussed extensively) but rather the angle
> of creating master checklists for different taxa. This would not only
> render the gender agreement topic irrelevant (as Doug has already mentioned
> in his latest emails) but also, and most importantly, it would provide
> other benefits that go beyond dealing with gender agreements, such as
> having a single list with all names (synonyms, homonyms, etc.), accounting
> for all species of a taxon, species distribution, etc. In that sense it
> would not be "a monumental waste of time and effort" as George considered
> it would be in his reply to my email.
>
> But indeed what I wrote about has been done before and Tony points out
> many good examples of that (and certainly more could be mentioned). I
> emphasized doing so from a bottom to top approach instead of the (I think
> most common) top to bottom way, as perhaps that would be more practical.
>
> Tony wrote: "The coordination of activities in that respect would appear
> to me to be the area that would benefit most from additional work that is
> not presently being undertaken". And I totally agree with his assessment.
> Again, perhaps because I am too naive (or perhaps I am too prone to embark
> into monumental waste of time and effort enterprises? ;-)  I was
> considering the possibility of mobilizing the wider community to work
> together in their respective taxon groups and produce those lists. The only
> "novelty" I could claim from my previous email is to make those lists as
> published paper (or papers) first, so that the authors implied in those
> efforts get the recognition they deserve (and are also encouraged to work
> towards those goals). And the idea of encouraging scientific societies to
> somehow organize the work to be done... instead of relying on the admirable
> enthusiasm and hard work of a few fellows.
>
> Cheers,
> Jose
>
> --
> José L. Fernández-Triana, Ph.D.
> Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
> Canadian National Collection of Insects (CNC)
> 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C6, CANADA
> Phone: 613-759-1034. Email: jose.fernandez at agr.gc.ca
> Alternative email: cnc.braconidae at gmail.com
>