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

Dmitry Mozzherin dmozzherin at eol.org
Fri Nov 19 14:34:07 CET 2010 

>From harvesting point of view it is a pain to figure out what did author
decided to express scientific name and thus

- scientificName
 - scientificName & scientificNameAuthorship
 - scientificName, taxonRank & scientificNameAuthorship
 - scientificName, verbatimTaxonRank & scientificNameAuthorship
 - genus, subgenus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet, taxonRank,
scientificNameAuthorship
 - genus, subgenus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet,
verbatimTaxonRank, scientificNameAuthorship

is a nightmare to figure intetion of an archive author during the harvest.
If there would be 2 terms --  one only for 'canonical name' and one for a
name with authorship (if known) I would be much obliged!

Dima

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 4:24 AM, "Markus Döring (GBIF)"
<mdoering at gbif.org>wrote:

> What Darwin Core offers right now are 2 ways of expressing the name:
>
> A) the complete string as dwc:scientificName
> B) the atomised parts:
>    genus, subgenus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet,
> verbatimTaxonRank (+taxonRank), scientificNameAuthorship
>
> Those 2 options are there to satisfy the different needs we have seen in
> this thread - the consumers call for a simple input and the need to express
> complex names in their verbatim form.
> Is there really anything we are missing?
>
>
>
> When it comes to how its being used in the wild right now I agree with Dima
> that there is a lot of variety out there.
> It would be very, very useful if everyone would always publish both options
> in a consistent way.
>
> Right now the fulI name can be found in once of these combinations:
>  - scientificName
>  - scientificName & scientificNameAuthorship
>  - scientificName, taxonRank & scientificNameAuthorship
>  - scientificName, verbatimTaxonRank & scientificNameAuthorship
>  - genus, subgenus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet, taxonRank,
> scientificNameAuthorship
>  - genus, subgenus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet,
> verbatimTaxonRank, scientificNameAuthorship
>
> To make matters worse the way the authorship is expressed is also
> impressively rich of variants.
> In particular the use of brackets is not always consistent. You find things
> like:
>
> # regular botanical names with ex authors
> Mycosphaerella eryngii (Fr. ex Duby) Johanson ex Oudem. 1897
>
> # original name authors not in brackets, but year is
> Lithobius chibenus Ishii & Tamura (1994)
>
> # original name in brackets but year not
> Zophosis persis (Chatanay), 1914
>
> # names with imprint years cited
> Ctenotus alacer Storr, 1970 ["1969"]
> Anomalopus truncatus (Peters, 1876 ["1877"])
> Deyeuxia coarctata Kunth, 1815 [1816]
> Proasellus arnautovici (Remy 1932 1941)
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2010, at 8:50, Roderic Page wrote:
>
> > 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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> >>>>> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
> >>>>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> tdwg-content mailing list
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> >>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> _________________
> >> 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)
> >>
> >> Please send URIs, not attachments:
> >> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------
> > Roderic Page
> > Professor of Taxonomy
> > Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
> > College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
> > Graham Kerr Building
> > University of Glasgow
> > Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
> >
> > Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
> > Tel: +44 141 330 4778
> > Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> > AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
> > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
> > Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> > Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> > Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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