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CatalogueOfLife / general

The Catalogue of Life
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Editorial decision to change fossil/recent flags #48

Closed mdoering closed 5 years ago

mdoering commented 5 years ago

CoL gets feedback from users with evidence that a taxon actually is extinct, e.g. the Dodo. Should there be an editorial decision to change a taxon flag persistently across source updates?

mdoering commented 5 years ago

Are there not many, many other cases like this potentially existing? missing/bad vernacular name, maybe given in the wrong language. Any kind of fixes to the distribution. Should there be any kind of editorial decisions be possible?

In Illinois Oct 2018 we came to the conclusion we don't really need this, because: a) the editor is currently in touch with the source which is actively fixing any problems or b) the source data is in a github repository (i.e. not from a source that actively publishes data themselves like WoRMS or ITIS) where one can change any of its data - until the next update coming from the source potentially overwrites the changes; but these should then be included in that update (it is easy to view the diff, i.e. the exact data that has been modified since they last handed over their data)

mdoering commented 5 years ago

from Yuri:

This is exact case:

  • species does not marked as an extinct in the source database (ITIS does not include extinct taxa)
  • source database has no intention to change its structure and standard dataset (dodo will always go without Is_extinct flag)
  • persistent change should be applied at the stage of editorial modification in the workbench

a) you are in touch with the source which is actively fixing this

ITIS is not going to change it, if it has no field for extinct taxa.

b) the source data is in a github repository where you can change any of its data

Change of data in github cannot guarantee that the change will stay persistently through updates in future. It is exactly how CoL workflow works now and does not fulfil editorial needs. I should be able to make change once, the system should remember this decision and re-apply it with each new update. Editorial decision should always overpower initial data in the source.

mdoering commented 5 years ago

We treat these as editorial decisions in CoL+: https://github.com/Sp2000/colplus-backend/issues/224