Common names fail to use ancestor places when running the site in another language

Bug Reports
1

Some background here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/bulk-adding-of-common-names/23001

Common names are apparently supposed to use names set to ancestor places, e.g. an account set to use names from Ontario will use the Canadian spelling “blue-grey” instead of the global “blue-gray” for Polioptila caerulea.

However, this doesn’t work when running the site in a language that isn’t the language of the common name. For example, when running the site in English, setting the place for names to Uttarakhand fails to return the name set to the parent place India for Passer domesticus and instead returns the global name House Sparrow.

Another example: when running the site in German, setting the place for names to Canada shows “Blue-grey Gnatcatcher”, but setting the place for names to Ontario shows “Blaumückenfänger”.

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2

Are you suggesting that:

  • place name preference should override a language preference for common names
    and that
  • currently, user locale preferences override place name preference

Are these opposites, or is it more complicated than that?

3

I think it’s more complicated. For example, if

were true, I would expect to never see Blue-grey Gnatcatcher if my locale is set to Deutsch. Instead, if my locale is set to Deutsch, I see Blue-grey Gnatcatcher if my place names preference is Canada, but not if it’s Ontario.

To have congruent behavior, I think either

  • when running the site in English and setting my place name preference to Ontario, I should see the global blue-gray spelling
  • or when running the site in German and setting my place name preference to Ontario, I should see the Canadian blue-grey spelling

(To be clear, I think the second one is the better option.)

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