Why aren't we there yet?

Why aren’t we there yet? Rod Page

10 predictions

The Encyclopedia of Life will continue it's slow decline into irrelevance. …Nobody will care, as we have Wikipedia. 1

Catalogue of Life will issue another release, complete with much fanfare. The LSIDs will continue to fail. …nobody will care. 2

There will be much talk of integrating biodiversity data …nothing of significance in this area will happen. 3

For most young scientists GenBank will be the dominant source of information about biodiversity. …if it hasn't been sequenced, they won't care about it. 4

DNA barcoding by itself will become boring... 5

Literature that is not online will cease to be read. Taxonomic groups where the literature is not online will effectively cease to be studied. 6

The major databases will continue to be riddled with errors …databases will make no (serious) effort to fix these 7

No major database effort will adopt wikis 8

Data providers such as Thomson Reuters (Index of Organism Names) will continue to clutch to debilitating notions of “intellectual property” 9

The chasm between the classifications that underlie efforts such as EOL, and phylogenetic trees being generated by systematists will grow. …Neither community will care. 10

Nobody cares

Identifiers
Wikis
Literature
Data

Catalogue of Life will issue another release, complete with much fanfare. The LSIDs will continue to fail. …Nobody will care. 2

urn:lsid:catalogueoflife.org:taxon:ecaa85e8-0cc1-11e0-9fbc-0ca92ce1e3cc:col20101221 <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"xmlns:TaxonName="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonName#"xmlns:TaxonRank="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonRank#"xmlns:PublicationCitation="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/PublicationCitation#"xmlns:Common="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Common#"xmlns:Collection="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection#"xmlns:Institution="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Institution#"xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"xmlns:TaxonConcept="http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonConcept#"> </rdf:RDF>

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

Why have DOIs?

Link rot

Benefits of DOIs
Stable, reusable identifiers
Minimal branding
Someone to complain to if a DOI breaks
Metadata about what DOI identifies
Find DOI for object
Links between DOIs (= citation)

users WTF?

The major databases will continue to be riddled with errors …databases will make no (serious) effort to fix these 7

No major database effort will adopt wikis 8

Why take wikis seriously?

Wikipedia takes the scientific literature seriously

Finn Årup Nielsen (arXiv:0705.2106v1) Australian Systematic Botany Nature Science

Linked data (The future of the web, and always will be…)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/species/Komodo_dragon

Other fields use Wikipedia

GeneWiki Huss et al. 2008 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060175

Google search on gene names Huss et al. 2008 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060175

Caveats

Authorship

Versions 1 2 3 4 History flow

Afrotheria

Controversy

Physeter catodon Physeter macrocephalus

We should follow MSW3, as it is what is used in nearly all other mammal articles on Wikipedia. UtherSRG (talk)

Nope. The MSW3 is in error in this case. It will stay as macrocephalus . Tag! You're it. Jonas Poole (talk)

Please stop. MSW3 is the defacto standard used in the majority of mammal articles … so MSW3 stands. - UtherSRG (talk)

So, basically its your fucking bible? Well, I'm a man of little faith. I'll be reverting it back. You, my friend, may stop reverting it. It's quite annoying. Jonas Poole (talk)

Yes, contradiction, because I *had* listed macrocephalus as a synonym. … So, since you say that that is acceptable, I'll restore it to be that way. - UtherSRG (talk)

That's not what I said you fucking piece of shit. I'm reverting it back to macrocephalus asshole. Damn you fucking cunt. Jonas Poole (talk)

Wow. Seriously consider taking a Wikivacation to cool off, man. Your heat is way above this conflict. - UtherSRG (talk)

WikiLinks

http://ispecies.org Text Genomics Map Images Literature Isthmohyla rivularis is a rare species of frog in the Hylidae family. It is found on along fast-moving, clear streams of the lower and pre-montane rainforest slopes in Costa Rica and western Panama, from . It is threatened by habitat loss. The species was thought to have become extinct in the late 1980s. In 2007, it was re-discovered in the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica, and a female was spotted in 2008.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7609780.stm ...

http://iphylo.org/linkout

NCBI Wikipedia NCBI Wikipedia NCBI Wikipedia exact synonym redirect exact exact

53,000

53,000 ?

Against Guidelines Unfortunately the newbie User:Rdmpage suggested something, that is against guidelines ... Enforce something against guidelines has no chance. Guidelines are long term used standards, that we all should respect.

I love Wikipedia…

… Wikipedia doesn’t love me.

http://iphylo.org/linkout

Literature that is not online will cease to be read. Taxonomic groups where the literature is not online will effectively cease to be studied. 6

Taxonomic exceptionalism

Ann. Mag. nat. Hist., (4) 19, 147 “microcitations”

Ann. Mag. nat. Hist., (4) 19, 147. Descriptions of new genera and species of New-Zealand Coleoptera - Part IV by F P Pascoe Annals and Magazine of Natural History (4) 19: 140-147 (1877)

Bibliography of Life

www.mendeley.com

BHL Europe

Information wants to be free.

Information wants to be expensive.

Data providers such as Thomson Reuters (Index of Organism Names) will continue to clutch to debilitating notions of “intellectual property” 9

www.theplantlist.org

You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work

iphylo.org/~rpage/theplantlist

taxonomist users

http://etechlib.wordpress.com	53
http://www.carlboettiger.info	13
http://twitter.com	3
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	1

Why aren't we there yet?

by Roderic Page

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