[tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in DwC scientificName: good or bad?

Fri Nov 19 08:50:49 CET 2010

I'm with Jm. For the love of God let's keep things clean and simple.  
Have a field for the name without any extraneous junk (and by that I  
include authorship), and have a separate field for the name plus all  
the extra stuff. Having fields that atomise the name is also useful,  
but not at the expense of a field with just the name.

Please, please think of data consumers like me who have to parse this  
stuff. There is no excuse in this day and age for publishing data that  
users have to parse before they can do anything sensible with it.

Regards

Rod

On 19 Nov 2010, at 07:06, Jim Croft wrote:

> Including the authors, dates and any thing else (with the exception of
> the infraspecific rank and teh hybrid symbol and in botany) as part of
> a thing called "the name" is an unholy abomination, a lexical
> atrocity, an affront to logic and an insult the natural order of the
> cosmos and any deity conceived by humankind.
>
> In botany at least, the "name" (which I take to be the basic
> communication handle for a taxon) is conventionally the genus plus the
> species epithet (plus the infraspecies rank and the infraspecies name,
> if present).  All else is protologue and other metadata (e. s.l. s.s,
> taxonomic qualifiers) some of which may be essential for name
> resolution, but metadata nevertheless.  In much communication, the
> name can and does travel in the absense of its metadata; that is not
> to say it is a good or a bad thing, only that it happens.  I am not
> saying thi binominal approach is a good thing, in many respects
> Linnaeus and the genus have a lot to answer for; but it what we have
> been given to work with.
>
> in zoology... well, who can say what evil lurks within... but if what
> you say below is right, at least they got it right with the
> authorship... ;)
>
> I think it is a really bad move to attempt to redefine "name" so as to
> include the name metadata to achieve some degree of name resolution
> (basically the list of attributes does not end until you have almost a
> complete bibliographic citation - is author abbreviation enough? no,
> add the full author surname? no, add the author initials? no, add the
> first name? no, add the transferring author? no, add the year of the
> publication? no, add the journal? no, add the article title? no, add
> the type specimen? no, add the... )
>
> That is not to say these strings of the name and selected metadata are
> not useful, perhaps even essential, in certain contexts; only that we
> should not pretend or declare they are the "name".  They are something
> else and we should find another "name" for them.  "Scientific name" is
> not good enough as a normal person would interpret this as the latin
> name
>
> Fortunately I think nearly every modern application keeps all the bits
> of the name and publication metadata separate in some form, so it is
> just a matter of geekery to glue them together in whatever combination
> we might require...
>
> jim
>
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 9:57 AM,  <Tony.Rees at csiro.au> wrote:
>> Well, that sounds fine to me, however you may note that the ICZN  
>> Code at least expressly states that authorship is *not* part of the  
>> scientific name:
>>
>> "Article 51. Citation of names of authors.
>>
>> 51.1. Optional use of names of authors. The name of the author does  
>> not form part of the name of a taxon and its citation is optional,  
>> although customary and often advisable."
>>
>> I vaguely remember this has been discussed before - would anyone  
>> care to comment further?
>>
>> Cheers - Tony
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Markus Döring [mailto:m.doering at mac.com]
>>> Sent: Friday, 19 November 2010 9:49 AM
>>> To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart); David Remsen
>>> Cc: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org List
>>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in  
>>> DwC
>>> scientificName: good or bad?
>>>
>>> Sorry if I wasnt clear, but definitely b)
>>> Not all names can be easily reassembled with just the atoms.  
>>> Autonyms need
>>> a bit of caution, hybrid formulas surely wont fit into the atoms and
>>> things like Inula L. (s.str.) or Valeriana officinalis s. str.  
>>> wont be
>>> possible either. dwc:scientificName should be the most complete
>>> representation of the full name. The (redundant) atomised parts  
>>> are a
>>> recommended nice to have to avoid any name parsing.
>>>
>>> As a consumer this leads to trouble as there is no guarantee that  
>>> all
>>> terms exist. But the same problem exists with all of the ID terms  
>>> and
>>> their verbatim counterpart. Only additional best practice  
>>> guidelines can
>>> make sure we have the most important terms such as taxonRank or
>>> taxonomicStatus available.
>>>
>>> Markus
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 18, 2010, at 23:26, Tony.Rees at csiro.au wrote:
>>>
>>>> Just re-sending the message below because it bounced the first  
>>>> time.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Markus/all,
>>>>
>>>> I guess my point is that (as I understand it) scientificName is a
>>> required field in DwC, so the question is what it should be  
>>> populated
>>> with. If it is (e.g.) genus + species epithet + authority, then is  
>>> it
>>> beneficial to supply these fields individually / atomised as well,  
>>> maybe
>>> with other qualifiers as needed?
>>>>
>>>> Just looking for an example "best practice" here - or maybe it  
>>>> exists
>>> somewhere and you can just point to it.
>>>> in other words:
>>>>
>>>> (a)
>>>> <scientificName>Homo sapiens</scientificName>
>>>> <scientificNameAuthorship>Linnaeus, 1758</a>
>>>>
>>>> or (b):
>>>> <scientificName>Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758</scientificName>
>>>> <genus>Homo</genus>
>>>> <specificEpithet>sapiens</specificEpithet>
>>>> <scientificNameAuthorship>Linnaeus, 1758</a>
>>>>
>>>> if you get my drift...
>>>>
>>>> Regards  - Tony
>>>>
>>>> Tony Rees
>>>> Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
>>>> CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
>>>> GPO Box 1538,
>>>> Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
>>>> Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
>>>> Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
>>>> e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
>>>> Manager, OBIS Australia regional node, http://www.obis.org.au/
>>>> Biodiversity informatics research activities:
>>> http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
>>>> Personal info:
>>> http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm? 
>>> id=1566
>>>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
> 'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
> of doubtful sanity.'
>  - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
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---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
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