[Nhcoll-l] Lack of latitude and longitude

[Douglas Yanega]

Assignment of arbitrary points is a balancing act.

It is a recommended practice (e.g., in the Darwin Core protocols) that 
every specimen-level database record with a georeference *should include 
an uncertainty radius*. There are lots of collections, ours included, 
that follow this standard.

The problem is that not everyone who USES specimen data makes use of 
this "error radius" information. As tempting as it is to say "Well, it's 
not our fault if people abuse our data", it does nonetheless represent a 
real concern, such that we might NOT want to put specimen data online if 
the error radius is exceptionally large.

The use of centroids, common as it is, can have serious repercussions 
when dealing with assessments for T&E taxa. In my own experience, the 
datasets for various bumblebees are "contaminated" with so many such 
points that it has created problems, where very rare and 
geographically-limited species are mapping over much larger geographic 
areas than are realistic. This can keep a species in actual need of 
protection from BEING protected, and cause wasted resources when a 
species DOES get listed, and people spend millions of dollars doing 
surveys for the species *in places where they have never occurred*.

The responsibility here is shared, ultimately, between data providers 
and data consumers. Providers shouldn't assume that all users will know 
to check for big error radii, and consumers shouldn't assume that the 
error radius is always zero. Sometimes, even though you might want to 
have a data point in your database, you either shouldn't assign one, or 
- if you do - you shouldn't share it online. Not to prolong or extend 
the discussion, but a similar issue occurs with respect to non-native 
plants or animals raised in gardens or quarantine facilities; if they 
are given a georeference for their "novel" location, this is *very* open 
to misinterpretation. We have thousands of record in our database of 
this nature, as we maintain a major insectary/quarantine facility, with 
thousands of voucher specimens, but those data are *not* put online 
*unless* the data being displayed are for the point of origin.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     office:951-827-8704
FaceBook: Doug Yanega (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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