[tdwg-tag] TDWG ontology revisited ... a newcomer's perspective

[Peter DeVries]

I think that the effort to organize information about species has been
moving so slowly in part because of it's focus on names. Our goal is to
organize information about species, names are just the handle that we use to
tag a species.

The efforts would go much more quickly if we create identifiers for species
concepts and then point the various names to that identifier.

I did a check via Google Scholar for papers published this year that mention
the *Puma concolor*, and *Felis concolor.*
*
*
Both of these names for the same species are still being used.

It would make sense to mint global URI for that species concept and then tag
all papers, images, observations to that species concept.

As these documents are being processed, more and more information will be
tied to that identifier.

Identifiers for "good" species could be created quickly. New observations
could start to be tagged with that identifier along with whatever name the
recorder would like to use. e.g. Aedes/Ochlerotatus

These concepts could be mapped to the GNI data in the following way

http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/3165624
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/505310
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/10330292
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/6689244
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/3169574
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/10568463
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/12104361
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/1758834
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/11818218

I have not had much success getting this idea accepted in a number of these
communities.

So I have a proposal. Let my group start making species concept identifiers.
If this concept is adopted, I have succeeded in proving my point. If this
concept fails, then I am wrong. Either way, we should have an answer by the
end of the decade.

Respectfully,

- Pete

P.S. This is not about changing the system of binomial nomenclature, it is
about tying data together so we can start to address the world's problems in
a efficient manner. Binomial nomenclature stays. ;-)
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