Mystus dibrugarensis

[MatsP]

Thanks for that.

I will try to refrain from commenting on what should be added or not, and leave it to others, since I clearly have no clue.

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Mats

[Jools]

Hi Mats,

OK, so I think the confusion here is the CoF is the LAST port of call and not the FIRST. The first port of call is whatever expertise we can lay our hands on, then it's a rather unstructured who else can we ask (based on us knowing they know stuff about, in this case,

Mystus

) or read up on it and finally it's CoF maybe even just to find literature to try to figure it out.

In the case of Mystus, we are fortunate to have Silurus who is a (the) global expert on these things. So, I think you may have put a few noses out of joint replying within about an hour of the OP with your first post. I think Shane, and others, might have thought it more tactful to wait for Silurus' view. It's a thing that is rapidly being lost in our "always on" world of smartphones and global websites, but waiting for others who know more than we do is the thing that helps here even if it happens less and less.

Additionally, that first post of yours may have been taken by some to mean, well CoF says its invalid so it's on the Balaji's shoulders to go get that fixed before Planet will change. Which was not your intent I am sure. I read it as trying to explain how CoF worked as you'd spoken to Bill about corrections before and that it might be a parallel activity.

It is a tricky one as I know many scientists dislike being asked to comment on such matters sometimes as they then find things like "Scientist X says this IS species Y and so YOU are clearly a numpty". Which isn't good, but in terms of a non-attributable steer, as you know many of "those who know stuff" are very helpful. In the case however, it's Silurus and he's "on the staff"!

And of course Silurus or others may have missed it. In which case your massive willingness to help with the site could come into play by asking him to comment. Or indeed, after a wee while, asking if anyone has a comment.

Hope that makes sense. Please, anyone else, jump in if I've misunderstood the nuances of what went on here.

Jools


MEANTIME! Balaji - please do add the species.

[Shovelnose]

The species has been added. I do have a clarification about its year of description though. The title of the paper says Chaudhuri, 1912, Fishes from the Abor Expedition. The numbers 1913 do appear on some pages randomly on the left top of some pages including the B.merianiensis page but not on the M.dibrugarensis page. Anyone have a better copy or is there something I am not seeing here???

[Shane]

Jools' above posting captures my own thoughts quite well.

The two most salient points being:

1) The Cat-elog is organic to Planetcatfish. It is not a copy of another database. Who or what it follows has always been determined by PC's contributors. At times, threads discussing changes have, as they always should, been hotly debated. However, in the end we have always gone with PC's view. PC has some of the world's most knowledgeable catfish people building its bones. They might as well pack up and go home if Bill Eschmeyer's (or anyone else) is the only accepted point of view here.

2) Following from my comments above, what is the point of attracting all this talent if they are not allowed an opportunity to weigh in? In this specific case (and it is just one example) we have numerous contributors that are acknowledged experts on bagridae and have published literally hundreds of articles in both the scientific and hobby literature on the family. Would a better initial response have been from these folks, or an answer defaulting to data on another web page?

-Shane

[The.Dark.One]

The species has been added. I do have a clarification about its year of description though. The title of the paper says Chaudhuri, 1912, Fishes from the Abor Expedition. The numbers 1913 do appear on some pages randomly on the left top of some pages including the B.merianiensis page but not on the M.dibrugarensis page. Anyone have a better copy or is there something I am not seeing here???

According to COF the publication date is 1913. Now that is something we can rely on COF getting right (in almost all cases).

[MatsP]

The species has been added. I do have a clarification about its year of description though. The title of the paper says Chaudhuri, 1912, Fishes from the Abor Expedition. The numbers 1913 do appear on some pages randomly on the left top of some pages including the B.merianiensis page but not on the M.dibrugarensis page. Anyone have a better copy or is there something I am not seeing here???

According to COF the publication date is 1913. Now that is something we can rely on COF getting right (in almost all cases).

Or at least we're no more wrong that one of the more reliable sources... When I google for the species name, there are quite a few other places that say 1913 as well.

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Mats

[Shovelnose]

Alright. Just checking because I have seen the year 1913 as the year of description everywhere but can't find it in the OD.

[Silurus]

The fish report of the Abor expedition was published in September 1913.

http://ia600305.us.archive.org/13/items ... 08indi.pdf

[Shovelnose]

Great!!! Thanks HH.

[MatsP]

Is there anything else needed to be done here?

[I've updated the occurrence data for this species]

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Mats

[Shovelnose]

Nope. I think this can be moved to Resolved.