[Zoobank-list] names Re: Zoobank-list Digest, Vol 9, Issue 6

[Adorian Ardelean]

 Hello Geoff,

I would argue that a taxonomist NEEDS those names that are passionately
called here "rubbish names."  Otherwise you may discard important
information.

Here are SOME of my points:
1. If you are a taxonomist for sure you deal with names in literature
published along the years. I doubt there is a taxa group in which seminal
authors did not produce /or important taxonomic papers do not contain these
so called "rubbish names".
2. Just think, errors can enter in the scene even after the text left the
author's hands (as you go backward in time this is more and more common)
3. Museum specimens and inventories are not always in the hands of a
specialist. Errors may be found on labels and in databases. Do we disregard
these specimens because of a letter reversed/doubled/omitted/transliterated?
A "rubbish" name may have got there not because of a careless taxonomist?
4. How many variants of specific epithets can we find for names derived from
the *New Zealand* name? In the synonym list of a single species!
5. Would you consider the quality of a taxonomic paper based on names used
alone?
6. There are lots of projects that record/digitize names from literature
(good or rubbish) having in mind points 1-5.
7. BioIT can help and what was a nightmare in the past can be an easy
solution in the future (of course for this to happen: the project needs
stability to make sure that any brick (e.g. rubbish sorting) is there for
tomorrow and nobody has to burn gas again to make the same brick). IT can
transform a registry of names into something useful for everybody - not only
for taxonomists, but everybody. I think and investment into such an
INSTITUTION it is of STRATEGIC importance & it is not a matter of
taxonomists alone. Avoid duplication and reuse the same effort in an array
of tasks that fulfill taxonomists needs and beyond. Think with the future in
mind and always flexibly accommodate past in your schema - because what you
think is good & perfect now, WILL be past in the following moments.

I hope my points will be understood in a positive way & I am not affiliated
with uBio

All the best,
Adorian

Dr. Adorian Ardelean

 proiectul myNature
str. Rascoala din 1907 nr 12
Timisoara 300325
Romania

http://mybiosis.org/nature/portal.php?pagename=firstpage [a Romanian
biodiversity-database]
http://mybiosis.org/nature/portal.php?pagename=adorian
<http://mynature.net/adorian.php>[CV]
http://mybiosis.org/romanianorchids/ [Romanian Orchids]
http://greendorf.com [botanical illustration]
http://planktonnet.awi.de/portal.php?pagetitle=index
http://www.ubio.org
http://portal.ubio.org
http://microscope.mbl.edu
 http://starcentral.mbl.edu/biopedia
 http://starcentral.mbl.edu/custar

Yahoo messenger: transylvaniasan
project coordinator of myNature project

 *Ne vom întoarce într-o zi...
Si cei de azi cu pasii grei
Nu ne-or vedea, nu ne-or simti,
Cum vom intra încet în ei.
*Radu Gyr

  IT Researcher
AquaEcology
Stresemanstr. 46
27570 Bremerhaven
Germany
phone: 0471-140-475



---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.co.nz>
> To: "Zoobank Discussion List (ICZN)" <zoobank-list at afriherp.org>
> Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 11:28:34 +1200
> Subject: Re: [Zoobank-list] zoobank prototype
> I understand the desire to link all published data to the correct name.
> Someone out there has published something vaguely biological and it
> contains a misspelled name of a species. Obviously this is going to be
> important information, and the species was accurately identified — yeah
> right (after all they carelessly got the name wrong), but I shouldn't
> prejudge it. Iubio and Ion can index it. Absolutely fine by me.
>
> But what has this to do with a register of taxa names? Why should anyone
>   need to devote any time at all to weeding out this rubbish name from
> such a register when there is no logic to it being there? It simply
> doesn't have any of the necessary indicators requiring it to be taken
> seriously by a taxonomist, the most obvious of which would seem to be
> its appearance within a taxonomic context.
>
> On a positive note — I am fairly confident that the author and 'original
> description reference (article title) of animal species newly described
> since 1978 are accurately represented in the current ZooBank search
> interface under the 'name info' tag.
>
> As for the rest of the records ported from ION, well they are a very
> mixed bag indeed. I would like to see them disappear, because they are
> only unverified possibilities of names.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Geoff
> --
>    Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.co.nz>
>     http://www.annelida.net/
>
>
>

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