I’m sorry if that is how it appears.
- Don’t add names from Wikidata
That doesn’t seem to be good blanket advice, for two reasons:
Firstly, many, many common names are missing. Even for taxa like “Primates”, there was no common name in my case. Copying those from Wikidata is just a shortcut: I could enter the name manually, but I could also use a script to do it for me. I still review the form before submitting, correct any mistakes, and fix the case (which is quite well defined for Hungarian: lower-case all unless it contains a proper name).
I do all that before I submit the name. At this point, the use of Wikidata as a source is just convenience: I know what “Primates” are called without having to look it up in Wikidata. But looking up is easier.
The second reason is, in cases where Wikidata doesn’t have the common name either, I would go ahead and enter it both in Wikidata and iNaturalist (citing at least one reference in both cases). Often this is just missing data, and I know the name. Sometimes I don’t know the name and I have to look it up in books, but often it is listed in published papers, on a university website for example. Even if I don’t know the name myself, I trust the source.
- Don’t automate the process of adding names from Wikidata
Like I said, I still review the form, and submit each change one by one. I’ll keep the script private and I won’t bulk-import taxa — I mostly care about my own observations anyway. I’m not trying to take over the world here :)
I still think I’m adding names in the slow, manual way, and I’m doing the research where I don’t know the name already.
I hope to explained my approach and motivation here. The last thing I want is introduce some sort of data corruption.