[tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in DwCscientificName: good or bad?

David Remsen (GBIF) dremsen at gbif.org
Fri Nov 26 09:59:54 CET 2010


I stated that I believe this definition should be updated so that

1.  It may hold the authorship information if the source date has this  
merged with the name but that the recommendation is that it be split  
into authorship.

OR

2. dwc:scientificName should explicitly NOT store authorship  
information and that a new term be created that carries the current  
definition for dwc:scientificName that does require a merged name 
+authorship string.

DR

On Nov 26, 2010, at 9:41 AM, <Tony.Rees at csiro.au> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> The problem is with the present DwC definition of scientificName- it  
> is expected to contain authorship if the latter is available. (I  
> presume Dima did the last upload into GNI so you could ask him what  
> actually happens).
>
> Cheers - Tony
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David Remsen (GBIF) [mailto:dremsen at gbif.org]
>> Sent: Friday, 26 November 2010 7:39 PM
>> To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart)
>> Cc: David Remsen (GBIF); deepreef at bishopmuseum.org;  
>> m.doering at mac.com;
>> Chuck.Miller at mobot.org; tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org; dmozzherin at eol.org
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in
>> DwCscientificName: good or bad?
>>
>> Tony
>>
>> Why isn't this something the GNI would address?  I don't see the
>> problem with DwC.   What is scientificNameAuthor supposed to be used
>> for if it isn't to store the authorship information from a scientific
>> name?
>>
>> If we really need to make strict distinctions and can't deal with  
>> just
>> the two name parts,  then the logical new term needs to be
>> scientificNameVerbatim or scientificNameWithAuthorship,  not  
>> canonical
>> name.
>>
>> David
>>
>> On Nov 26, 2010, at 1:11 AM, <Tony.Rees at csiro.au>  
>> <Tony.Rees at csiro.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi David, all,
>>>
>>> It is also important to follow the trail of how the name information
>>> then gets passed on to other systems e.g. harvested into GNI etc. My
>>> impression is that currently, if dwc:scientificName holds a sciname
>>> without authorship and the latter information is put into
>>> dwc:scientificNameAuthor, then the version that is harvested into
>>> GNI (presuming that happens) loses the authority information, which
>>> is definitely a bad thing...
>>>
>>> Cheers - Tony
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: David Remsen (GBIF) [mailto:dremsen at gbif.org]
>>>> Sent: Thursday, 25 November 2010 8:00 PM
>>>> To: Richard Pyle
>>>> Cc: David Remsen (GBIF); Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart);
>>>> m.doering at mac.com;
>>>> Chuck.Miller at mobot.org; tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org; dmozzherin at eol.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in
>>>> DwCscientificName: good or bad?
>>>>
>>>>> The thing that concerns me about 3a is the conditional  
>>>>> definition of
>>>>> scientificName (i.e., it excludes authorship when that information
>>>>> is
>>>>> pre-parsed, but includes it when it's not pre-parsed).
>>>>
>>>> right.  That is where we are today.  We need to test the contents
>>>> every time.   One thing we are developing requirements for is a
>>>> DarwinCore Archive "Normaliser" which would be a web service/web  
>>>> app
>>>> client  that can accepted a DwC-A as input and would output the  
>>>> same
>>>> data as a new DwC-A that conforms to a set of rules based on those
>>>> requirements.  So one thing would be to parse the names into the
>>>> authorship field for simpler consumption.
>>>>
>>>>> The thing that concerns me about 3b is that scientificName is
>>>>> (supposedly?)
>>>>> required; so if someone with unparsed information provides
>>>>> scientificNameWithAuthorship, then are they supposed to leave
>>>>> scientificName
>>>>> blank?
>>>>
>>>> The short answer is yes,  they would leave it blank.  if they could
>>>> parse it then they would have put the parts into name and author
>>>> elements in the first place.   I also think the inverse is true.   
>>>> If
>>>> it is already split and they put it into name and author fields -
>>>> they
>>>> won't concatenate and put a new, merged copy into a name+authorship
>>>> field.
>>>>
>>>> In regard to the requirement confusion - either we keep
>>>> dwc:scientificName alone and have a simple requirement test or we  
>>>> add
>>>> a new term and make it a conditional requirement.  My point was,   
>>>> if
>>>> we add a new term,  then the set (scientificNameWithAuthorship,
>>>> scientificName, scientificNameAuthorship) is more clear than
>>>> (canonicalName, scientificName, scientificNameAuthorship)
>>>>
>>>> DR
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Rich
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>



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