[tdwg-content] Taxon Concept dilemma [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Markus Döring m.doering at mac.com
Wed Jul 7 16:32:27 CEST 2010


well, before scientificNameID and in particular taxonConceptID was added to darwin core is was intended to be a flexible identifier for a taxonomic or nomenclatural unit of your choice.
Just like occurrenceID doesnt preclude if we are talking about a specimen, observation or something else, the taxonID was just a primary key to a scientific name related "object".
Im trying deliberately here not to use taxon, name, concept or name usage as any of these were intended to be identified with the taxonID. As "taxon"ID for taxonomists seem to refer only to taxa and not names, we had a problem finding an adequate name and as you might remember changed the terminology quite some times to usageID, nameID, speciesID, nameUsageID before finally ending up with taxonID again. But now that there is also a taxonConceptID and scientificNameID things are harder to define I suppose.

Markus




On Jul 7, 2010, at 16:23, Richard Pyle wrote:

> It sounds like we're in agreement on what needs to be done!  It's just a
> semantic problem of labelling the identifer we use to represent this
> granular "thing".  The several elements in DwC that include the word "Usage"
> are examples of these identifiers; but what is (still) not clear to me is
> what taxonID is intended for.
> 
> Rich 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Gregor Hagedorn [mailto:g.m.hagedorn at gmail.com] 
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 4:13 AM
>> To: greg whitbread
>> Cc: Richard Pyle; tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org; Kevin Richards
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Taxon Concept dilemma [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>> 
>> Excellent summary, Greg!
>> 
>>> We must assume, as Gregor has noted, that in the absence of 
>> explicit 
>>> statements to the contrary all taxonomic events are unique 
>> ... and if 
>>> they aren't, we simply have two that are the same.
>> 
>> Yes. This turns my vague efforts of gaining an operational 
>> perspective into an actual operationally useful instruction 
>> to those who have to assign IDs. :-) When in doubt, a 
>> (potentially) duplicate ID must be assigned!
>> 
>> Gregor
> 
> 
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