Taxacom: TAXACOM -- the long goodbye

[Richard Pyle]

Dear Jim (and fellow Taxacomers):

First, and foremost, I want to express my deepest and most sincere gratitude to you, Richard, and Patricia for providing this WONDERFUL service for nearly four decades!  I don't remember when I first subscribed to the Taxacom list (I'll need to excavate my old "Pine" email archives to figure that out; but I'm sure my first posting is somewhere in the archives you have), but I'm pretty sure I did so through a dial-up modem connection. In any case, I've been subscribed to Taxacom longer than any other email subscription list (by far), and it helped me immensely as I navigated both my undergraduate and grad-school tenures, and well-beyond until the present day.

I can say with absolute certainty that the contributors to Taxacom have collectively served as an extremely influential mentor (among the most influential) to me throughout my entire career, and I cherish the wisdom and insights that have flowed through the list and into my brain.  The ideas shared and debated on Taxacom have had a profound influence on my own understanding of Biodiversity and (especially) how we try to make sense of it through the practice of biological taxonomy.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to those who created this list and kept it going strong for nearly four decades, and also to the many incredibly bright and generous people who enriched it with such amazing content.  I am sad to see the end of an era, but I completely understand that now is the right time to bring it to a graceful end.

And yes, I ABSOLUTELY would like to get a copy of the full archives whenever you are able to share them!  Please let me know when that will be possible.

With Much Aloha,
Rich

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Director of EXCORE | Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704
Office: (808) 848-4115;  Fax: (808) 847-8252
eMail: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
BishopMuseum.org
Our Mission: Bishop Museum inspires our community and visitors through the exploration and celebration of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawai?i and the Pacific.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Beach, James H.
> via Taxacom
> Sent: Monday, December 8, 2025 9:02 AM
> To: TAXACOM <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
> Subject: Taxacom: TAXACOM -- the long goodbye
> 
> Dear Taxacomers --
> 
> When Drs. Richard Zander and Patricia Eckel started the online service
> "Taxacom" in 1987 at the Buffalo Museum of Science in Buffalo, New York,
> access to the online resource was through dial-up modems. It was years before
> global internet mail or the World Wide Web.  They graciously allowed me to
> assist in sustaining Taxacom as we evolved it from the original bulletin board to
> Bitnet Listserv software, and later Mailman software, at universities in Michigan,
> Massachusetts, California, and finally Kansas.  Dr. Peter Rauch co-managed
> Taxacom with me for all of that time.
> 
> During the 38 years, we have had innumerable rigorous, nuanced, interesting
> and fun scholarly dialogues.  We focused on important and complex topics in
> systematics, biogeography, taxonomy and nomenclature, among other areas.
> 
> After consulting with the Richard and Patricia (now at the Missouri Botanical
> Garden) and with Peter, we agreed that this would be a good time to retire
> Taxacom and ride off into the sunset.  We plan to close the Taxacom email list
> later this month (December 2025). This could be a bit of a shock or perhaps a bit
> of relief for some.  Feel encouraged to send any thoughts you may have to the
> list (soon) or to me.
> 
> We would like to recognize the many intellectual contributions hundreds of
> scientists have made to the Taxacom collective consciousness on research
> issues.  But it seems hardly possible to adequately acknowledge all of the
> cognitive and keystroking effort you put in over 38 years that made Taxacom
> worth receiving and reading.  I hope you feel a sense of satisfaction and
> accomplishment for keeping Taxacom subscribers enlightened, and sometimes
> even entertained, with your wisdom and wit.
> 
> I will archive the e-mail contents of the Taxacom mailing list archive in standard
> ".mbox' format files, so should there be a scholar or initiative in the future
> interested in what you all did here the archived mail will be preserved and easily
> read.   I will make those files available upon request to anyone early in 2026.
> 
> Thank you again for subscribing, contributing, or for just hanging out with
> Taxacom.  It has been fun, and it has been a good run.
> 
> 
> With best wishes,
> 
> Jim Beach
> 
> 
> James H. Beach
> Biodiversity Institute
> University of Kansas
> 1345  Jayhawk  Blvd
> Lawrence, KS 66045
> Cell:   785.331.8508
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> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for 38 years, 1987-2025.
> 
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>