Link, please, since I obviously haven’t seen that.
Is that marked anywhere on the interface? I’ve seen obsolete scientific names crossed out on the Taxonomy tab, but not colloquial names.
You mean after adding it? For regular user no, don’t know how curators see the page though.
When uploading there’s a checkbox, I’d really prefer not to have them crossed out, but using something else as it really looks not good and can stop people from using the option.
So, to summarize, there’s no way to distinguish between colloquial and common names on iNaturalist, but “iNat … asks that only names which are already commonly in use be added, per the current guidelines.”
So, common names only. Not non-common colloquial names.
Note Bobby23’s second point. Even though his first point could potentially be read to mean that all colloquial names are permitted on iNat, it would be contradicted by his second point if it were interpreted that way. I believe his first point is solely about the fact that there’s currently no way to mark a name as being a common name or not, it’s just a name with no extra metadata.
Tony certainly seems to be using the non-contradictory interpretation.
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I never said I disagreed with any of those things. I merely said that for the purposes of iNat, common names, colloquial names, and English names are the exact same thing.
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That’s a can of worms in itself – as in, how many people have to be using it for it to count as in-use? 2? 200?
How many people have to be using it for it to be “commonly” in-use? >50%?
And if it gets mirrored on lot of other sites, and lots of people start using it for that reason, is it then commonly in-use? I’ve a hunch that more people use the term Pac-Man Frog than South American Horned Frog, despite iNat’s usage to the contrary. I’d also be curious how many use Sea Monkeys vs. Brine Shrimp.
What about a situation such as this one. The bumblebee Bombus sonorus has as it’s common name “Sonoran Bumble Bee”. However, “sonorus” is Latin for noisy or loud and does NOT refer to the geographical location. It’s an erroneous common name based on a misinterpretation of the specific epithet [edit added later: this is my assumption based on it being very rare within the Sonoran desert].
Would it be “wrong” or “bad practice” to add “Sonorous Bumble Bee” as a common name–correcting the mistake? One would keep Sonoran as a common name, but have Sonorous as the name having priority (top of the list).
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This is what I commented on the flag:
“This name is clearly in use. It’s used on Bugguide, Wikipedia, EOL, and by the USDA and EntSoc, and many other places (over 1800 Google results). Yes, it’s a bit a misnomer in some ways, but as the only requirement for a name to be on iNat is to be in use this name clearly qualifies. And the species is found in the Sonoran Desert, it just is not restricted to there. There is absolutely no reason to change to change this name.”
This is an extremely well established name and there aren’t even any alternate names in use as far as I can tell. There really is no reason to change this.
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Simply as a word Sonoran can only mean from that named desert.
But we have to live with the taxonomy rule that the first name stays. Wrong. Forever. Common names must flounder thru the same swamp?
That is a tricky situation, but I would argue that if that common name is indeed in use (especially if it is the only widely used common name) then iNat should use it. iNat shouldn’t try to police or revise common names, no matter how “wrong” they are. This seems like a distinctly separate issue from common names being invented by iNat users.
I could list out hundreds of similar examples, but I think those type of corrections should be left up to taxonomic authorities or other entities that are looked to as the nomenclature standard.
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This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
See continuation of this topic here:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inventing-common-names-redux/40451