[Zoobank-list] Re: Zoogle versus ZooBank, ECat, Species2000, ITIS, uBio, etc.

[Faunaplan at aol.com]

Dear All,
what is so bad about competition?
When you want to build a major community building you would call for a 
competition among architects to get the best solution. So why not open up a more 
competitive side in the struggle to get the best solution for the global, 
easy-to-use and accessible-to-all catalogue of life? After all, it will be the users 
who decide what is the best solution, - and who knows that better than a 
company like Google  (so I just cannot imagine they would expect one man - as 
excellent as he might be - would do the job alone).

And why the word "versus" in the subject line? Obviously, the vision of 
'ZooBank' is not having another competing list but rather an approved basis - 
limited to the 'realm of nomenclature' - upon which any other lists can build and 
rely upon. 

So far, in reality the internet offers very little content for those who 
urgently need reliable info on biodiversity and conservation issues, - and if you 
find anything at all it's very likely to be misleading, - even through portals 
like GBIF, etc. Already there are wonderful tools out there (e.g., Roderic 
Page's) but the major missing element is the thesaurus of taxonomic names which 
are needed as universal keywords for retrieval of information. Only 
taxonomists familiar with their group of taxa can provide that element, - and even for 
the basic 'ZooBank' project you will need much more than just Zoological 
Record's enormous data resources.

Best wishes,
Wolfgang 
-------------

Wolfgang Lorenz
Hoermannstr.4
D-82327 Tutzing, Germany
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