[tdwg-content] Fwd: An individual identified to a higher group like Order, is still an instance of a species - just a species that is currently unspecified

[Peter DeVries]

Hi Steve,

Below is an example of an explanation that was later attributed to you.

There are several similar examples that I can also track down.

This is not a conspiracy but a behavior that is very common in human
organizations often referred to as cliquishness.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cliquishness

Over the years I have written emails with suggestions for the Darwin Core,
yet only recently was there any mention or reference to there being a
standard protocol for doing this.

And yes I did propose that we have a small group that makes up test cases
etc.

While thinking about whether to attend the meeting the year I realized that
there had been no real progress since last year.

Which suggests some dysfunctionality, since the public-lod list seems to be
able to make real progress via their email list.

After nearly 6 years of arguing against my suggestions to adopt a more
semantic approach suddenly there is consensus that this is a good idea and
that we should form a group to do it?

Why isn't Bob Morris arguing against changing a standard with "millions of
records", like he did with my suggestions?

Now he is an advocate for the Semantic Web?

So my question is will the new group demonstrate the same dysfunctionality
as the tdwg-tag.

Since several people now seem to now accepted ideas that they previously
argued against, I suspect it will also not operate in good faith and I would
expect the same kind of errors, omissions and misrepresentations that were
seen in the KOS report.

- Pete



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter DeVries <pete.devries at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 12:07 AM
Subject: An individual identified to a higher group like Order, is still an
instance of a species - just a species that is currently unspecified
To: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org



What I would recommend is that you treat a specimen that is identified to an
order (Perciformes) with something like the following.

Species => Order Perciformes species undetermined.

The individual is still an instance of a species, however that species has
yet to be determined.

What would work best is to have some standard way of writing the green
string above.

This would allow the occurrences that are of individuals identified only to
the Order Perciformes, to be interpreted as a species that falls somewhere
within the Order Perciformes.

- Pete


---------------------------------------------------------------
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/>
------------------------------------------------------------



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Email: pdevries at wisc.edu
TaxonConcept <http://www.taxonconcept.org/>  &
GeoSpecies<http://about.geospecies.org/> Knowledge
Bases
A Semantic Web, Linked Open Data <http://linkeddata.org/>  Project
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