[tdwg-content] ITIS TSNID to uBio NamebankIDs mapping

[Kevin Richards]

This is exactly why this problem still exists and will be very complex to solve - everyone says "we should have a single ID for a specific taxon name, there seems to be several IDs 'out there' that refer to the same taxon name, so Im going to create another ID to link them all up" - yet another ID that no one will particularly want to follow - you would have to get everyone to agree that your combinations/integration of taxon names is the best one and hope everyone follows it - unlikely in this domain.

My thoughts are that the most likely way this will be solve is by stnadard market type pressures - ie the best solution/IDs will be used the most and "float" to the top.  It is easy to say that the global taxon name data is a mess, but if you think about it 30 years ago taxon name data were very disparate, duplicated, unconnected, many with NO IDs at all.  So I beleive we are making progress and that we will continue to do so albeit at a fairly slow rate.

Kevin


"I agree. This was one of the reasons that I setup TaxonConcept the way I did. It attempts to connect both the LOD entities and the foreign key based entities."


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