[tcs-lc] New Version of TCS announced

Richard Pyle deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Thu Apr 28 13:40:28 PDT 2005


> Please find attached an instance document that attempts to mark up the
> list you have provided. I have added notes and comments to the document
> to try and illustrate what I had difficulty with.

Thanks Roger -- I'll try to take a look at this later today if I get a spare
moment.

> One area that I think needs discussion again is incorrect spelling of
> names and how they should be presented. I'll start a separate thread on
> this one.

Yes -- this comes back to the very fundamental question:  What is a unique
name object?  A text-string?  An object defined once by an original
description and re-used again in many flavors?  A unique set (combination)
of from one to three originally-described names? Is rank part of the name?

These questions are so fundamental, and their answers really an issue of
human preference and common practice, that we really all ought to get on the
same page for these things first, before we delve too deeply into more
subtle aspects and idiosyncracies of taxonomic nomenclature.

> Generally I would like to move away from Aus bus.

Actually, I prefer it because it is very diagrammatic, and allows us to
identify and focus on the fundamental questions.  Almost every "real" name
has some story behind it, and among any significant set of real names will
exist some fairly complex stories with subtle issues.  I agree we need to
deal with those subtle issues for TCS, but given that we haven't even pinned
down some of the basic/fundamental stuff yet, and given that the alternative
versions of TCS (v0.95 & v0.95.2) have such an important distinction, I
really think we ought to get past the basic "Aus bus" stuff first, before we
introduce the more complex real-world names.

> It is one of the few
> species I would really not mind becoming extinct. If we could move to
> using real world examples where possible that would be great. I can put
> a scan of some pages from monographs and floras/faunas somewhere if that
> would help.

I've got PLENTY of real-world examples with rich nomenclatural issues --
it's just a matter of filtering them down to a mnagable subset, and
formatting an export query to produce a TCS instance document.  But I'd
rather not do that until the basic questions get settled.

> I hope when I finally get the first draft of a User Guide up it will
> help clarify many points.

Very much looking forward to it!!

And thanks again for your continued efforts and patience!

Aloha,
Rich




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