[uf-discuss] Proposal: species

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <01C72403-C1A4-4D1B-9A0C-8F9EA2240CE4 at randomchaos.com>, Scott
Reynen <scott at randomchaos.com> writes

>On Sep 23, 2006, at 9:37 AM, Andy Mabbett wrote:
>
>> People use the vernacular AND taxonomic names of species in everyday
>> speech and writing - just read or watch any populist gardening
>>magazine
>> or television programme.
>
>We're only concerned with examples on the web.

Indeed - my point was merely illustrative.

>  The *-examples page  is part of the process specifically to avoid
>this kind of potentially  endless subjective disagreement.

Quite - had ether are plenty there, The only reason there are not a lot
more is that I didn't think it necessary to swamp the page with
pointless repetition.

For instance, *every* page on Wikipedia about a plant, animal or
micro-organism has (or, in a very few cases, will have) its scientific
name. I've cited one or two.

>  It would be much more productive to  focus this discussion on the
>specific examples we've documented  rather than vague concepts of an
>"average person."

I'm quite happy to do so; as soon as we ca stop pretending that
referring to living things by their unique names (be they taxonomic or
vernacular) is an "edge case" activity.

>> In fact, I'll wager that they do so far more
>> than they use 8-digit geo-spatial references, but that doesn't stop us
>> using "geo".
>
>I agree that geo is not currently very widely published on the web,
>and if it were suggested as it's own microformat, it probably  wouldn't
>be adopted.  But it was adopted as part of hCard

And "species" can be part of several other microformats; not least the
putative "pant", which didn't gather anywhere near this much negativity
- and yet it would be ludicrous to trey to have the alter format without
the former.

>With an expressed interest in microformats, everyone on this list is  a
>potential adopter.

People can hardly adopt something if they stopped it from existing!

>treating concerns as fodder for debate  doesn't strike me as an
>effective way to encourage adoption.

The alternative to debating *fallacious* concerns is to either accede to
them or ignore them. Neither would be productive.
-- 
Andy Mabbett
                Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards:  <http://www.no2id.net/>

                Free Our Data:  <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>