yeah, but I can't help thinking that it is *only under current conditions* that
people like Armand suffer the said nightmare, whereas things *could be so much
better*, with better data structuring of existing and future databases   practical experience, both by me personally, and by others that I know, some of
whom are professional taxonomists, at asking other taxonomists to clear up
uncertainties relating to names, etc., suggests that it can quite often just
make the problem worse!   the problem is with the way most current databases present their data, not with
the general principle   I am working constantly to improve the data structure on Wikispecies, so as to
allow the user to see where the data is coming from and how it links together
(and how it links with other databases), and where the problems are ...   *data sources must start to explicitly state how their data relates to that in
other data sources*, so that questions like:  

  can be answered by the user from the database (or not at all) ...   Stephen

________________________________ From: Bob Mesibov <mesi...@southcom.com.au> To: Stephen Thorpe <step...@yahoo.co.nz> Cc: TAXACOM <taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu> Sent: Monday, 20 February 2012 2:34 PM Subject: Re: [Taxacom] validation of taxon names

Stephen,

Can't fault what you're saying. Go back, though, to Rod Page's post:

"The point is not whether taxonomists consider them to be names, but how do we
find out what these things mean when we encounter them in scientific papers,
phylogenies, as entries in databases, as labels on specimens, etc.?"

Rod's 'we' *might* include taxonomists, but a much bigger 'we' are the
intended/hoped-for, non-specialist users of GBIF, EoL and a host of less
well-funded and probably shorter-lived projects. This the audience for whom we
are 'unlocking biodiversity science' and making its results universally
accessible.

So how do those 'we' find out what the names mean, a la Rod's question? They
either ask specialists or they suffer the nightmare that Armand said he faced. A
network of linked data does not supply the *interpreted* data that
non-specialists want.

I'm sorry if I may have confused the issue by bringing up the GAAOTR (although
Ken Walker suggested it's *needed* by non-specialists!), since Rod would
probably see that as just one of the ways of linking disparate data sources, and
not necessarily the best. And I do know that specialists can sometimes do a
sloppy job of compilation.

But the answer to 'how do I work out whether Aus bus in this data source is the
same as the Aus bus [or Cus bus, or Cus dus] in this other one'? begins with
asking a specialist, whether that's a professional taxonomist with lots of
publications on these and related taxa, or an exceptionally well-informed
compiler like Stephen Thorpe. I wouldn't trust a non-human source to tell me,
and an un-specialised GBIF customer (for example) *certainly* shouldn't.

-- Dr Robert Mesibov Honorary Research Associate Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316 Ph: (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195 Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/?articleID=570

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