[Zoobank-list] Mandatory? What database?

[Jim Mallet]

As far as I can see from reading the archives, everyone
signed up here is keen on the mandatory status of Zoobank.
Obviously, for taxonomists' convenience in finding names,
it would be great to have it mandatory, but let's not
forget that it was the mandatory problem that scuppered
the botanists' attempt to get registration on the
Botanical Code.  It may happen the same way in Zoology, if
it seems as though a small group is trying to push through
a system which will gain control of the whole direction of
zoological nomenclature.

Regardless of whether a mandatory list will be
popular, it seems to me that a voluntary system for name
registration (like GENBANK for DNA), auxiliary
to the current publications-based
system, should be set up as soon as possible.  Once people
see it working, and realize how useful it is, they should
start to sign up to it in droves.  Enlightened journals,
museums and systematics societies will undoubtedly mandate
or strongly recommend registration of new names on this
website, just as most top journals today mandate the
deposition of DNA sequence data on GENBANK/EMBL.

When it is all up and working and there is a large
consensus behind an existing program, with finance to
maintain it into the foreseeable future, it seems to
me that mandatory status in the Code will likely follow.

But right now I think there are a lot of questions about
practicality
that need to be answered first.  The last thing you want
is a mandatory requirement to submit to a database which
hasn't even started yet, and certainly doesn't have all
its problems ironed out yet.


James Mallet
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/jim/