Aggregator services wish list

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The taxonomic aggregators recommended by TETTRIs for use in name matching etc. are independent entities with their own priorities and specific targets. From TETTRIs' side we can therefore only suggest changes to be made to their services.

Name Matching

See Wish list for name matching services

Concept Subscription or Taxonomic Activity Notification Service

There are caveats regarding the unanimity of scientific names. As a consequence, in some cases taxonomic expertise is needed to decide if names from different sources do really refer to the same currently accepted taxon. Taxonomic aggregator systems should monitor such changes and be able to alert users when relevant changes are detected. An initial step toward such a Service is to categorize the changes in the content of a taxonomic database that influence the linkage of a scientific name to a taxonomic concept (see Database content changes affecting the taxonomic standing of a scientific name). The service itself could be implemented either by storing the user's name matching result (aggregator's name ID only) and informing users about changes when a new version is published (or, better, when a change is made in the dynamic version), or by users querying changes using their list of aggregator name IDs.

Names of Interest

This is an idea coming from research, where taxonomists strive to cover all names that belong to the taxonomic group they are working on. There are two parts in this:

  • Notification about new additions to a taxonomic group of interest (independent of the concept subscription mentioned above)
  • Following name matching: information about additional names in the aggregator's database that presumably belong to the taxonomic group of interest.