%META:TOPICINFO{author="RicardoPereira" date="1170088533" format="1.1" version="1.4"}%
---+++ What Name Units to Assing Identifiers?

RichardPyle on mailing list:

I want to underscore what I feel is a fundamentally important issue that needs to be addressed early on in any serious discussion of GUIDs for taxonomic names.  There is no broad agreement on what a unit "Name" really is, or should be.  Consider the following list:

   1. Pomacanthidae
   2. Pomacanthinae
   3. _Centropyge_
   4. _Xiphypops_
   5. _Centropyge_ (_Xiphypops_)
   6. _Centropyge flavicaudus_
   7. _Centropyge flavicauda_
   8. _Xiphypops flavicaudus_
   9. _Centropyge_ (_Xiphypops_) _flavicauda_
   10. _Centropyge fisheri_
   11. _Centropyge fisheri flavicauda_
   12. _Centropyge_ (_Xiphypops_) _fisheri flavicauda_

How many Name-GUIDs would be needed for the above list?  From one perspective there would be twelve GUIDs -- one for each "namestring".  In ITIS, there would be ten TSNs (#9 would not receive a separate TSN from #7, nor would #12 receive a separate TSN from #11).  From the botanical perspective (imagining these as botanical names), there would be at least seven (#6 & #7 would be spelling variants of the same "name", and I don't believe that #9 and #12 would be treated as different "names" from #7 and #11, respectively), and perhaps eight (not sure if #1 & #2 would be the same or different "names", the former being at rank Family, and the latter Subfamily).  From the zoological perspective, there may be only five: [1+2], [3], [4+5], [6+7+8+9+11+12], [10] (the various flavors of each "Name" unit would be considered attributes of the usage -- i.e., tied to the Concept object).

Before a GUID system can be implemented for taxon names, there needs to be a clear definition of what "unit" of name should receive a unique GUID, vs. what textual elements represent attributes of a usage    concept) instance. No definition is perfectly unambiguous in all cases, but I think it's important that the broader community adopt a SINGLE definition of what a Name unit is. Having separate systems for Botany vs. Zoology vs. whatever would, I think, go a very long way toward defeating the purpose of establishing taxon name GUIDs in the first place.