Hello - my first post to this mailing list.
I'm not a taxonomist, but I've been told by one that you might be interested in recent proposals for a formula (a "microformat" http://microformats.org) for marking-up, in HTML, the names of species (and other ranks, varieties, hybrids, etc.).
Microformats are a way of adding additional, simple markup to human-readable data items on web pages, using common and open HTML standards, so that the information can be extracted by software and indexed, searched for, saved, cross-referenced or aggregated. Microformats are also open standards, freely available for anyone to use.
The proposed format respects all existing biological taxonomies, and is not intended to change or supplant any of them - it merely provides webmasters with a method of either:
1) marking-up a taxonomical name (or taxon-common name pair) in such a way that its components can be recognised by computers
or
2) marking up a common name, so as to associative with it a taxonomical name, in such a way that the latter's components can be recognised by computers
For instance, if I mark up a list of common names on a page I maintain:
http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/staffs/tittesworth/latest.htm
using that microformat, a visitor might have browser tool which lists all the species on the page, sorted into alphabetical order within taxonomic class, or in taxonomic order, and then creates links to, say (for Joe Public) their entries in Wikipedia, or the British Trust for Ornithology, or (for scientists) some academic database of the users choosing.
Early thoughts on the format are on an editable "wiki", here:
http://microformats.org/wiki/species
Please feel free to participate - the proposal needs both messages of support (particularly from people or organisations who have websites on which they might use them) and, especially, comments and constructive criticisms - does the proposal understand and use taxonomy correctly; is the terminology right, are there any omissions or overlooked, unusual naming conventions?
You can use the above wiki, or the microformats mailing list:
http://microformats.org/wiki/mailing-lists
and/ or please feel free to pass this e-mail to other interested parties.
Thank you.