Can this be done? Granted it is only applicable to Vascular Plants, but that could be made clear in the display in the window below. I expect this would result in very few hemihomonyms intended for other kingdoms, and would cut way down on outdated plant names coming in that need to be resolved with POWO by curators.
If curators want to “take on” a node of vascular plants (like a family), Scott can mass import the missing names in that family from POWO. Then synonyms existing on iNat can be swapped into the new names. I did this for Hypericaceae for example and would be happy to answer questions if people want to send me messages.
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Their API is not documented and could break or be unavailable at any time. Still worth incorporating it?
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I wonder if it would be worth some communication with POWO, just to give them a heads up that a stable and documented API, or at least notices of changes, would be very helpful? @loarie?
I think it would still be worth incorporating if possible, even if access is not always reliable. Tweak it again if/when API changes require. Unavailability at any time can be an issue with any web resource.
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So I just noticed that the screenshot above gives the option to “Contact the Forum” for missing taxa. Isn’t that one avenue that we are actively trying to discourage?
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Hi - I’m in touch with Kew for our collaboration on plant species mapping and so asked for a contact - hopefully someone with POWO will be in touch when they are back from a few days travel. Shall I direct to @tiwane?
I generally don’t deal with taxonomy stuff, but they can email help@inaturalist.org and I can forward it to the correct staff member.
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Maybe a good discussion for the Curators category? I would think they want to keep discussions on the website, but I don’t know.
I will seek contact this way - as it’s not really POWO team asking for help would be a bit odd to direct them to an anonymous address.
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POWO doesn’t currently have an API as far as I’m aware - they make archived exports available here which they update weekly
https://storage.googleapis.com/powop-content/backbone/taxonomyWCS.zip
https://storage.googleapis.com/powop-content/backbone/taxonWCS.zip
that doesn’t really lend itself to the external names provider functionality which hits an API endpoint. I’ve emailed Rafaël Govaerts about content of POWO from time to time, but I’m not sure who’s responsible for their existing or potential API infrastructure
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POWO does have an API, but it’s undocumented and they would prefer you use their python wrapper. You don’t actually have to though – taxize calls the API directly, for example.
The somewhat strange thing is that the POWO website itself uses API v1 (e.g http://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?q=bouteloua) , though v2 exists, (e.g. http://powo.science.kew.org/api/2/search?q=bouteloua).
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is the issue with the API (or lack thereof, as the case may be) still the current state of things? it would save an enormous amount of time if vascular plants could be covered by adding names from an external provider. I had always assumed the “Search external name providers” tool was simply nonfunctional until I added a subspecies that way today, because the other 99%+ of names I’ve wanted to add or have been asked to add were not found in Catalogue of Life.