[tcs-lc] Taxonomic Product or Taxonomic Data

[Roger Hyam]

Hi Everyone,

This may seem like quite an high level topic and you will have to excuse 
me if this ground has already been covered but I am trying to nail down 
the scope of the TCS/LC schema a little more in my own mind and need to 
gather opinions on the high level goals.

Are we passing the product of taxonomic research or raw taxonomic data?

Either:

1) We imagine taxonomists doing their work and then publishing the 
results using the TCS/LC schema. Basically publishing taxon concepts, 
when to use them, what to call them and how they relate, what can and 
can't be said about data tagged with different names and concepts etc. 
We probably have about this level of coverage in the schema at the moment.

2) We imagine taxonomists publishing everything they do using the 
schema. Every specimen examined and what it was identified as. All the 
'agents' they know about and the different teams they have worked in and 
how their names have been abbreviated and where they have collected etc 
etc. The nitty gritty of stuff that would be very useful for some one 
producing a monographic revision to have to hand but that an ecologist 
or biomedical prospector wouldn't care about at all.

I think that some of the discussions that we are having at the moment 
would be resolved if we had a definite policy on which of these two 
approaches we were following.

I'd be grateful for peoples thoughts on this. I consider 2 to include 1 
so there is no option of saying we want to do both!

Best regards,

Roger






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  Roger Hyam
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  Biodiversity Informatics
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