Nathan Wilson commented on "Megascolecidae":

Since this is not the first time we've had an issue like this with CoL (lost all the orders under Aves the last time), perhaps we should keep a window of CoL classifications available. It would also make sense to choose a more reasonable preferred classification for whichever group is now missing stuff. However, I don't think the preferred classification stuff is integrated into the API yet. Time to buy some more dog food!

9 months ago

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Bob Corrigan commented on "Megascolecidae":

@Roderic Page: Egads, that's no good. I know there are folks who would say "if only EOL could build a consensus classification". . .I've asked some team members to look at this and see how to fix it. We've got ITIS "in the house" here at NMNH, so that should speed things up.

9 months ago

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Roderic Page commented on "Megascolecidae":

@Bob Corrigan: The problem is that Catalogue of Life did have a nice classification for these worms that listed a number of genera. In the version EOL has recently ingested, CoL have simply adopted the WORMS classification, which doesn't cover terrestrial taxa. As a result, the terrestrial earthworms in this family have simply disappeared! CoL doesn't seem to have a means to check whether each updated classification makes sense and it's approach of delegating parts of the tree of life to particular projects (e.g,. ITIS, WORMS, etc.) can cause problems if those projects have a specific bias (e.g., WORMS handles marine taxa).

In other words, the prior version made sense, the latest one is an obvious botch, and I'm frustrated because cached classification data I have is now broken. It is time the field stopped messing about and adopted a single, global classification coupled with decent version control so that errors like this get scrutinised and fixed.

9 months ago

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Bob Corrigan commented on "Megascolecidae":

@Roderic Page: You can set a "preferred classification" if you'd like from the Names tab as a first step from one of the other available classifications for this taxon.

9 months ago

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Roderic Page commented on "Megascolecidae":

The Catalogue of Life classification http://eol.org/content_partners/14 for this family is broken. For reasons which surpass understanding the classification for this terrestrial family of earthworms has been taken from the World Register of Marine Species, which recognises a single genus (Pontodrilus).

9 months ago

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