[uf-discuss] Proposal: species

[Colin Barrett]

On Sep 23, 2006, at 10:08 PM, Andy Mabbett wrote:

> In message <06679606-BD0B-4CF2-9516-54D78D6A6930 at lava.net>, Colin
> Barrett <timber at lava.net> writes
>
>>
>> On Sep 23, 2006, at 11:42 AM, Andy Mabbett wrote:
>>
>>> "Human being" is a reference to a species, and should be marked up  
>>> as
>>> such on any page which includes it in a biological context.
>>
>> That's quite a bit of extra metadata -- IIRC the species tree has a
>> height of about six or seven at its shortest. Is that really  
>> necessary
>> on EVERY page mentioning a scientific name in a biological context?
>
> No. Who has suggested that it is?

Nobody -- I was unclear on the concept. The answer to the question is  
apparently: No.

>
>> Could an automated tool be written to, when the text "Homo sapiens"  
>> is
>> encountered, automatically mark it up into the correct species
>> microformat?
>
> Yes - any find-and-replace tool can do that.
>
>> is Genus Species a fairly unique way of identifying  something?
>
> Of course. The whole point of taxonomy is to uniquely name things.

OK, I didn't know that.

>
>> Or are there collisions?
>
>
>> I think questions like those will help your case -- sending dozens of
>> links to this list will not.
>
> Then you'd better ask TC why he asked for them.

I don't think he was asking for them to be posted to the list, but to  
be put on the examples page. I hope you're not coming away with the  
impression that people are attacking your idea or trying to shoot it  
down -- we're just trying to understand the "who, what, where, why,  
when, how" of this proposal -- not all of us are experts in Taxonomy  
-- evidenced earlier in this email :).

I think the work you've been doing on this and the geo stuff is  
interesting -- unfortunately haven't had a chance to use them in my  
markup, but I am interested to see where things progress.

-Colin