Sorry to bring this up again, but I find many of the common English names used in iNat to be confusing and frustrating. Please consider Sarcophaga carnaria (“Common Flesh Fly”): https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/124550-Sarcophaga-carnaria I’m not sure if it is actually “common” in Europe, but it d…

As someone who has actively added quite a few common names to iNaturalist, I feel like I may have decent insight here. [image] cmcheatle: As a curator no one can stop you from changing it, however the guidelines on adding common names are clear, that you should not be inventing names. While …

I don’t really see what the problem is. We have scientific names to make exact distinctions between species. You claim people pick the wrong species because the common name confuses them. If that happens it means they are not aware of the significance of scientific names and that probably means th…

This links to comments raised elsewhere about limiting or flagging species level ID https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/warning-banner-on-ids-for-taxa-that-cant-be-ided-using-photos/11119/19 I hope this is addressed at some point, for invertebrates at least, I agree that ideally species level ID where…

Use of geospatial data for CV also mentioned here as something being worked on which would help with your issue:- https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-2019-team-retreat-follow-up/373

So how does one delete a common name on iNaturalist without replacing it with something else? There are quite a few bogus common names for leaf-mining insects on iNat, which I have not encountered anywhere else, and which have led to all kinds of absurdly wrong IDs. For example, someone gave Sumitro…

Only a curator or the person who added it (regardless of their being a curator or not) may do so. The ability of all users to edit common names was removed due to unfortunately high levels of edit wars going on… If you dont fall into one of those 2 buckets, then you can only flag it for review. If …

I am a curator, and was a curator when I had this problem.

[image] ceiseman: Sumitrosis rosea I think we were typing at the same time. Most likely while a common name it was entered as a scientific name as the lexicon. If that is done, you need to edit it to set as inactive first, save it, then go into delete it. If entered under any language, you sh…

Thanks–I’ll try that next time I have this problem.

I disagree with the interpretation of the curator guideline: Please don’t add information to a name in addition to the name itself, e.g. “grumblefoots (this genus is monotypic, just ID to species!).” I consider it quite proper to add geographical disambiguation to a name, which is very different fr…

Changing common names - common flesh fly - #36 by system - Curators

Topic		Replies	Views	Activity
Species Only Common Name Causes Misidentifications - What to do? General	36	2361	December 24, 2021
What to do about silly common names? General common-names	53	2340	August 5, 2024
Removing existing common names that are deemed confusing General question	34	1725	May 4, 2023
Best Course of Action with Deceptively Incorrect Common Name? Curators	33	1181	April 26, 2024
Editing Common Names for Consistency Curators	50	1368	November 29, 2025

Species Only Common Name Causes Misidentifications - What to do?

General

36

2361

December 24, 2021

What to do about silly common names?

General

common-names

53

2340

August 5, 2024

Removing existing common names that are deemed confusing

General

question

34

1725

May 4, 2023

Best Course of Action with Deceptively Incorrect Common Name?

Curators

33

1181

April 26, 2024

Editing Common Names for Consistency

Curators

50

1368

November 29, 2025

Changing common names - common flesh fly

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