'''Web-based taxonomy''' is the effort by [[alpha taxonomy|taxonomists]] to use the [[World Wide Web]] to create unified, consensus taxonomies.
{{Rcat shell|
In his 2002 paper on the subject<ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6884/full/417017a.html Godfray, H.C.J (2002). Challenges for taxonomy. ''Nature'' 417: 17-19]</ref>, [[H. Charles J. Godfray]] called for the creation of Web-based organisations to collect all the accumulated literature on a taxonomic group into a centralized knowledge base and make this data available through the Web as a unified taxonomy, so that it can be examined and revised. Such a platform would be owned and maintained by a taxonomic working group, governed by an editor or an editorial board. An example of such a platform is [[FishBase]].
{{R to related topic}}
}}
The notion of Web-based consensus taxonomies remains controversial because, as two Australian researchers pointed out<ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6905/full/419337a.html Kevin Thiele and David Yeates. Tension arises from duality at the heart of taxonomy. ''Nature'' 419, 337 (26 September 2002)]</ref>, taxonomic names are not fixed but hypotheses, and therefore constantly changing.
== References ==
<references />
==External links==
*[http://www.catalogueoflife.org Species 2000 / ITIS Catalogue of Life]
