[Zoobank-list] Mandatory? What database?

[Richard Pyle]

Hi James,

> 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.

That is exactly the plan, I believe.  A prototype system either already is
being developed, or soon will be, which will allow users to "test-drive" the
registry system through voluntary registration of names and acts.  The idea
was to make sure a working system is fully functional, well-tested, and
otherwise "bulletproof" well before the proposed January 1, 2008
implementation of the next version/edition of the ICZN Code, wherein
registration would become mandatory.  This allows two years to build it,
test it, implement the features that make taxonomists happy (e.g., email
notification of new entries within a particular taxonomic group), and get
the taxonomic community "on board" with online registration.  One would hope
that the system would be beneficial to enough taxonomists that, by the end
of 2007, there will be a clear consensus of approval for mandatory
registration.  If such a consensus is not clear, I suspect the plans to
implement mandatory registration would be postponed, allowing the voluntary
registration system to continue, and improve.

Aloha,
Rich