[tdwg-content] Does a species entail a specific classification or does it have many classifications.

[Peter DeVries]

What you propose works except that it is not stable to changes in
nomenclature.

It is really no better than using the name.

You are still left with is *Aedes triseriatus* the same as *Ochlerotatus
triseriatus*?

Data linked to http://example.org/Aedes_triseriatus is lost when the name is
changed to http://example.org/Ochlerotatus_triseriatus

> by citing a secundum

Yes if that publication is generally available and contains enough
information that a set of general taxonomists will assign the same *secundum
* to the same set of specimens.
and if everyone uses the exact same string of characters to when citing
that *secundum*

> the proposal saves this trivial processing time, but does not contribute
to the problem

If this is so trivial then why does GBIF have one map for *Felis
concolor*and one map for
*Puma concolor*?

also why does the Barcode of life not have all their *Aedes triseriatus* and
*Ochlerotatus triseriatus* mapped to one id rather than one for each name
and misspelling?

> se:Puma_concolor_sec._Smith

How many lexical variants of the string above are there likely to be?

The GNI name string URI's are simply a way to create a correctly formed URI
from a name

I have the name string "Puma concolor (Linnaeus 1771)" in my database, the
GNI has the same namestring.

We share a common algorithm to convert this into a standard uuid >
'772d5162-f5aa-596c-98e0-a1c6c5a29bb9'

Now as long as the GNI has the same namestring I have, I can link our two
databases together using the following URI.

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/772d5162-f5aa-596c-98e0-a1c6c5a29bb9

These URI are simply to allow different databases to link to each other.

Names as they are structured do not make good URI's since certain characters
need to be encoded so (Schmoe) becomes something like %28Schmoe%29 in a URL.

What you see as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassia_(legume) is actually
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassia_%28legume%29

Also what about heterotypic synonyms?

Things like & need to be replace with *&amp*; Note that if you are not
careful this can become *&amp*;*&amp*;*&amp*;*&amp*;*&amp*; as it is
re-encoded.

The GNI URI's are not for human consumption and if you view the entity above
in a semantic web browser (see link below) it will substitute the URI for
the human label.

Note that this is what Sig.ma has done with both the GNI URI's and the
Geonames URI's.

The difference is that in this case the RDF has made it clear that we mean "
*the geospatial entity that is the state of Texas*."

http://sig.ma/search?pid=013030d4a93abdd6206234b683c51b31

So these have a human label, unfortunately your current browser does not
know to display it.

Also aren't TDWG URI's supposed to be opaque?

To an extent the TaxonConcept URI's are designed for humans in that it is
easier to copy and paste and type *V2ldt* or
http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/V2ldt.html

than
*
*
*Centrocercus minimus* J. R. Young, C. E. Braun, S. J. Oyler-McCance, J. R.
Hupp and T. W. Quinn 2000

and then recognize that this is the same thing as

*Centrocercus minimus* J. R. Young, C. E. Braun, S. J. Oyler-McCance, J. R.
Hupp and T. W. Quinn, 2000

*Centrocercus minimus* J. R. Young, C. E. Braun, S. J. Oyler-McCance, J. R.
Hupp & T. W. Quinn, 2000

*Centrocercus minimus* J. R. Young, C. E. Braun, S. J. Oyler-McCance, J. R.
Hupp & T. W. Quinn 2000

*Centrocercus minimus* J. R. Young, C. E. Braun, S. J. Oyler-McCance, J. R.
Hupp et T. W. Quinn 2000

*Centrocercus minimus* J. R. Young, C. E. Braun, S. J. Oyler-McCance, J. R.
Hupp et T. W. Quinn, 2000

*Centrocercus minimus* Young et al., 2000

It is also clear (or will be) that
http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/V2ldt.html is about a species that is known
by all those names and other synonyms through the GNI.

In contrast is not clear that *Centrocercus minimus* Young et al., 2000 is
the same as all the other name variants listed above or that it may have
other synonyms.

This is without getting into the variations in *secundum*.

So are people going to include all the possible name variants in their data
sets or simply choose a uri that links to those variants for them?

The current species concepts are not complete in the sense that they do not
make it clear as to what is and what is not an instance of a given species
concept.

However, they are a start and since they contain links to both Wikipedia and
Wikispecies, as well as a number of other annotative information sources,
they will provide
humans a simple way to determine if what they have in their records is the
same "kind of thing" as what is represented by the species concept URI.

Also there is nothing that says that taxonconcept.org could not be moved to
some other institution in the future.

Respectfully,

- Pete


On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 10:06 AM, Gregor Hagedorn <g.m.hagedorn at gmail.com>wrote:

> A side remark, about where I believe the whole discussion is misleading:
>
> > Puma concolor   se:v6n7p
> > That way in the future if the name changes without a change in the
> concept.
> > Eupuma concolor se:v6n7p
> > The data says linked.
>
> This always looks nice... However, with such proposals we, the
> computer guys, make the concept-assessment someone elses problem (i.e.
> the taxonomists, ecologists, pathologist, etc.), and, at the same
> time, do not provide them the means to communicate. The assumption is
> that a scientist or applied worker would know whether to add se:v6n7p
> to a given taxon name or not.
>
> With my taxonomer/pathologist hat on: I mostly have no clue which
> concept XXX concolor is - and whether it is changed or not. Puma
> concolor may be a different concept than Puma concolor. We are, of
> course, guilty of communicating in a shamefully loose way (s.str., s.
> lat. etc.), which could and should be improved by citing a secundum,
> but beyond that: mapping concepts is a taxonomic opinion, no objective
> truth.
>
> So given that any trivial mapping mechanism can map multiple IDs (Puma
> concolor, Eupuma concolor) to a single concept - the proposal saves
> this trivial processing time, but does not contribute to the problem
> of communicating in a way that is suitable to assess taxon concepts.
>
> ----
>
> Aside: Please compare the highly linked, and generally correctly
> linked Wikipedias with other content management system for the
> advantage of human legible IDs [[Puma concolor]] over
> http://x.y.net/node/234872561 - links. My own observation is that in
> the latter case only a fraction of the desirable links are created,
> and that these are quite often going to wrong, or perhaps obsoleted
> places.
>
> I therefore think:
> se:Puma_concolor_sec._Smith
> would be a much more useful mechanism than all the
> computer-scientists-only proposals like se:v6n7p or
>
> http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/772d5162-f5aa-596c-98e0-a1c6c5a29bb9
>
> Gregor
>



-- 
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Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
TaxonConcept Knowledge Base <http://www.taxonconcept.org/> / GeoSpecies
Knowledge Base <http://lod.geospecies.org/>
About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://about.geospecies.org/>
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