'''Web-based taxonomy''' is the effort by [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomists]] to use the [[World Wide Web]] in order to create unified, consensus taxonomies of life on Earth.
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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 more easily 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]].
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The notion of Web-based consensus taxonomies remains controversial because, as two Australian researchers pointed out,<ref>{{cite journal | author = [[Kevin Thiele|Thiele, Kevin]] and David Yeates | year = 2002 | title = Tension arises from duality at the heart of taxonomy | journal = Nature | issue = 6905| doi = 10.1038/419337a | pages = 337 | volume = 419 | pmid = 12353005| doi-access = free }}</ref> taxonomic names are not fixed but hypotheses, and therefore in constant change.
== See also ==
* [[Biodiversity Informatics]]
== References ==
<references />
== External links ==
*[http://www.cate-project.org/ CATE Project]
*[http://www.eol.org/ Encyclopedia of Life]
*[http://www.catalogueoflife.org Species 2000 / ITIS Catalogue of Life]
