Thanks for clarification! On iNat the common names that are displayed as the main default names for organisms (when available) also mean “commonly used name”, per iNat guidelines. Advocacy of novel names on iNat occasionally abuses this difference in terms (“anybody can invent a name and then it will instantaneously become a common name per definition and common names are what is iNat showing so where is the problem?”). However, from this and other forums on iNat, it is clear that misunderstanding of terms is likely not the reason why invention of common names on iNat is accepted by some. Proponents of novel names on iNat actively argue that novel names are better than no names for any organism despite being aware that they are not commonly (meaning ferquently) used. The believe is that some sort of natural selection process will remove “bad” common names and leave only “good” common names. I think there are unrealistic expectations on the functionality of common names and there are some strong alternative perspectives on the principal role of common names (e.g. invention of common names is seen as a way of engaging public in science). iNat administrators recognize it as a problem but assume that the scale of the problem (in terms of how many names are invented/how bad they are/ how easily they propagate outside of iNat) is not large enough to make it a priority for iNat. If you can start building database of names for your focal taxonomic group that will show how many common names used on iNat were introduced despite not being commonly used it should help to bring attention of iNat admins to this problem. I tried to start this initiative here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/data-on-history-of-common-name-changes/27507 but I’m not sure to what extent we need to collect the data manually versus can be retrieved and filtered automatically.
I started with manual revision for iNat termites and so far it seems there might be more common names invented on iNat (or if not invented then used in such small scale that literature or internet search does not find them) than there are termite common names really commonly used. I suspect at least in arthropods this might be rather frequent situation which is quite alarming.
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