[tcs-lc] You don't need embedded names to do concepts

[Roger Hyam]

Hi All,

I have been talking to a few people off list and doing some thinking and 
I would like to return to a point that was made earlier when Rich 
proposed (but denies it :) having a top level names element within the 
schema.

The question is whether we embed names in TaxonConcepts or whether we 
have separate top level element called 'Nomenclature' or similar which 
contains name objects and just have a pointer to them from 
TaxonConcepts. Briefly this is "NamesAsObjects" vs "NamesEmbedded" debate.

My opinion has moved to favouring NamesAsObjects. Here is the straw that 
broke the camel's back for me.

Imagine I want to pass a TaxonConcept from my system to your system. I 
have the circumscription here in my field guide. I have been using it 
during my survey of Wonderland.

Under the current TCS NamesEmbedded model I either:

a) Pass the complete name details, i.e. the canonical name the 
unstructured name the canonical author string, the micro ref, the 
pointer to the reference etc. embedded in the TaxonConcept.

OR

b) I pass a pointer to the 'Original' TaxonConcept the name was used by 
(I can't point to the name itself). You can then retrieve the Original 
TaxonConcept and ignore any circumscription details that come with that 
object because they are irrelevant.

Clearly I don't want to pass the full name details every time I pass a 
concept but I would like to give  you the ability to expand on the 
details I do send so it is most sensible to do b.

Making you retrieve the Original concept circumscription (which neither 
of us may be interested in at all) and then discard it is a little 
contrived to put it mildly. So what I would do as an implementor is 
provide a SOAP or digger call, getScientificName(), that just returns 
the name part of the original concept. I'll put together an XML Schema 
to express this and hey presto we have a Name as an object - which is 
what we are trying to avoid with having names embedded.

Exactly the same process occurs for retrieving basionym data.

Since this straw broke my camel's back some other straws have come to my 
notice such as where you link to type specimens that aren't part of you 
taxon circumscription - but I won't go into them just now.

I think what I am saying is that it is very useful to pass names around 
as objects and people will do it whether we want them to or not.

Within our community there is general support for the notion of 
TaxonConcepts and agreement that it would be a good thing if people used 
them more but there is much division and lots of discussion on how we 
handle names if we _force_ the use of _only_ TaxonConcepts. The level of 
discussion on this nearly equals the level of spam I get!

The goal of a transfer format is to be as inclusive as possible:

* Having names as objects does not prevent people from passing 
TaxonConcepts and so is the most inclusive.

* Having names embedded does make passing name data very awkward or 
involves creating notions of 'special' concepts of various kinds to 
cover up the fact that we are really just trying to pass nomenclatural 
data. It is likely to exclude some people who can't see the merit of 
doing it this way or cause them to supplement the schema in some way 
which may lead to incompatibilities.

Currently I don't think we have a choice but to model NamesAsObjects. As 
always I remain open to be persuasion.

Would be grateful for people's thoughts. Keep it shorter than I have 
been though :)

A simple 'Agree' or 'Disagree' from as many people as possible would be 
really useful. You can do it off list if you like!

-- 

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  Roger Hyam
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  Biodiversity Informatics
  Independent Web Development
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  http://www.hyam.net  roger at hyam.net
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  2 Janefield Rise, Lauder, TD2 6SP, UK.
  T: +44 (0)1578 722782 M: +44 (0)7890 341847
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