[tdwg-tag] LSID Sourceforge URL & LSID Best Practices

Thu Aug 27 10:01:21 CEST 2009

Rich's first short-term solution to change the link in the left hand lists on the TDWG site is now done, it points to http://sourceforge.net/projects/lsid/.  You may need to refresh your browsers to see this.

I'm going to take a quick trip around the site to see if I can see other links to this site and point them there as well.

Piers

-----Original Message-----
From: tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Richard Pyle
Sent: Thursday, 27 August 2009 3:45 PM
To: Tony.Rees at csiro.au; r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk; tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] LSID Sourceforge URL & LSID Best Practices

Rod's somewhat hyperbolic interpretation of this thread notwithstanding, I
think it's fair to say that everybody cares.  But everybody is also hugely
over-committed and under-funded.

Biodiversity Informatics is now in its adolescence.  Growing pains (and
tantrums) are to be expected.  In an ideal world, all endeavors (including
human maturation) would bypass the teenage years. Speaking as the parent of
a teenager, I can sympathize with the frustrations and the temptation to
throw in the towel.  But I maintain confidence (both as a parent, and as a
pseudo-practitioner of Biodiversity Informatics stuff) that this development
phase will eventually pass; and things will be better on the other side.

So...back to my original questions:

1) Should the orange LSID icon (i.e.,
http://zoobank.org/images/lsidlogo.jpg) be displayed next to LSIDs on HTML
pages (as per recommendation #33 on p. 23 of the LSID draft Applicability
Statement,
http://www.tdwg.org/fileadmin/subgroups/guid/LSID_Applicability_Statement_dr
aft.pdf)?

2) If so, what should it link to (if anything)?  The aforementioned
Applicability Statement says, "An icon linking to an explanation of the LSID
should be present...", and the suggested text is "This is a Life Sciences
Identifier (LSID), a permanent, globally unique identifier for this data
item. Use this LSID whenever you need to refer to this data item." On the
ZooBank site, I use this text for the mouse-over on the icon, but I wanted
the icon itself to link to something more substantative, so I linked to
http://lsids.sourceforge.net/

3) Given that http://lsids.sourceforge.net/ leads me to an "embarassing"
terminus, should I:

a) simply change the link to http://sourceforge.net/projects/lsid/ ?

b) remove the link entirely?

c) wait until this thread reaches an eventual conclusion, and shift to a
google code (or whatever) link?

I'm thinking that in the short-term (i.e., tomorrow), I'll go with option
"a".  In the middle term (i.e., if/when it's clear that sourceforge will not
be the permanent home) I'll go with option "b".  In the long term, I'll go
with whatever emerges out of option "c".

Thanks for any feedback...

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org 
> [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of 
> Tony.Rees at csiro.au
> Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:56 PM
> To: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk; tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] LSID Sourceforge URL & LSID Best Practices
> 
> Rod page wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 1. It's perfectly acceptable for the public face of a major 
> biodiversity informatics project to be broken in a way that 
> makes us look amateurish.
> </snip>
> 
> At the e-Biosphere open discussion session, I reported an 
> interesting and unfortunately not totally uncommon experience 
> with major biodiversity informatics sens. lat, that several 
> were either broken (e.g. OBIS searches for common taxa) or 
> returned incomplete, or over-complete (correct + incorrect) 
> data, and nobody seemed to care at this point. I guess it's 
> just not mission-critical enough for anyone who does care??
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org 
> [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
> Sent: Thursday, 27 August 2009 4:51 PM
> To: Technical Architecture Groupmailing list
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] LSID Sourceforge URL & LSID Best Practices
> 
> OK, the message I'm getting is that:
> 
> 1. It's perfectly acceptable for the public face of a major  
> biodiversity informatics project to be broken in a way that makes us  
> look amateurish.
> 
> 2. TDWG must guarantee universal analysis at all times (even 
> thought   
> China may, on a whim, ban access to any site it choses).
> 
> 3. That TDWG is already using Google Code for Darwin Core 
> (http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/ 
>   ) is, of course, irrelevant to this discussion, as is the 
> fact that  
> Google Code seems fine for GBIF 
> (http://code.google.com/p/gbif-ecat/ )  
> and EOL (http://code.google.com/p/eol-website/ ) projects.
> 
> 4. Nobody thought these issues were important when the original  
> project was set up on SourceForge  
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SourceForge 
>   ).
> 
> 5. That Greg Whitbread's puns are appalling.
> 
> I'm clearly too worked up about this, but all I'm looking for is a  
> simple fix to a simple problem. Instead, we're off on some tangent  
> about incorporation, instead of actually dealing with the issue at  
> hand. Perhaps I shouldn't get too bothered, and take this discussion  
> as tacit agreement that LSIDs are doomed anyway.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Rod
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> DEEB, FBLS
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> tdwg-tag mailing list
> tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag
> _______________________________________________
> tdwg-tag mailing list
> tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag

_______________________________________________
tdwg-tag mailing list
tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag