I love the name Boaty McBoatface…so your idea of badly wrong is probably my idea of perfectly right - it´s hugely subjective. As memorable names for boats in the last 50 years go though, I don´t think I can name any others, and I´m amazed anyone outside of the UK knows of this…so it succeeds objectively in at least one sense I´d argue. Really though, how is Boaty McBoatface any different to the authentic common names for woodlice I posted above, like Crunchy Bats or Belly Buttons?
You are against humour ?..or against people in basements?
I don´t see use of humour as a bad thing.
I don´t have a problem with people in basements either.
There’s gotta be a record of this in the DB even if it’s not visible to users. IMO these should probably be bulk reverted since it’s clearly violating iNat’s rules even if it wasn’t malicious. If there is a “real” common name for any of those species, someone will eventually notice it missing and re-add it. Unfortunately, by this point, many of these names are probably referenced in blogs/flickr/etc. because of the (made-up) common name that iNat showed when someone submitted an observation, so it gets kind of muddy as to whether iNat’s fictional common name has actually become “common.” But I don’t think that is a good reason to leave it all in place.
To all: Only opinions and anecdotal evidence exist on the extent of common name invention on iNat. These are often contradicting and therefore preventing a constructive discussion. Let’s try to gather data on invention of common names on iNat. I started a separate topic here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/data-on-history-of-common-name-changes/27507
There are bodies that presume to appoint themselves as guardians of the names of things but they have no authority beyond forcing people to use their arbitrary common names in publications controlled by the guardians. As I have mentioned elsewhere, eggheads quibbling over whether to call whiskeyjacks gray (sic) jays or Canada jays are annoyances, not authorities.
As noted, the bird world has a surfeit of these sorts. American fish types tend this way as well but no amount of pedantry is ever going change the fact that a brook trout is a brook char is a brook charr is a speckled trout.
I don’t support people making up names that are confusing or deceptive or problematic or inappropriate. As such i think it’s better for people on iNat not to just make up names for things. I don’t support pushing new names on things that have established ones. However, i see all of those as less problematic than the trend I see of trying to ‘lock down’ and ‘standardize’ common names, which has cultural, social, and ecological implications that i see as a lot more damaging than the goofy irritating names, which if they are no good, will just stop getting used over time. (if they keep getting used they are at least catchy and useful). I also don’t support things that would make curation and nomenclature on iNat even harder to handle. I don’t support schemes that display different names or obfuscate naming.
I’d take it a step further and say that I personally think all names that are culturally inappropriate, target some group in a negative fashion, OR are named after any individual human be phased out and replaced with other ones, or at least accompanied with an alternative name.
These are just my personal non-moderator opinions and do not necessarily reflect any opinions of iNat staff or anyone else.
The ship was eventually named the Sir David Attenborough. As a consolation prize, the submersibles on board are called Boaty McBoatface! They missed a real opportunity there. The name was inspired by a rescued owl named Hooty McOwlface.
What I have found to be very common is common names standard on iNaturalist that disagree with those in published field guides. For instance, my Peterson Field Guide calls Coreopsis gigantea the Giant Sea Dahlia. Well, it isn’t in the genus Dahlia, but that’s how common names work; there are plenty of plants with, for instance, “lily” in their colloquial names that are not even Liliaceae. But when you find it on iNaturalist, it has had a taxonomic change to Leptosyne gigantea, with the common name Giant Coreopsis – again, the common name does not reflect its current genus.
If the common name is not going to match the genus anyway, why not call it what the field guide calls it? That way, we at least have consistency with the published literature. Since the Peterson guide in question was published in 1976, its common name has seniority over iNat’s. If we were talking scientific names, that would settle the matter. If, as @charlie suggests, we have “official” common names, how to we choose which one is official?
In many cases, I think the in-use names should be changed to what was in-use before. If I went to the Leptosyne gigantea taxon page and “changed” the common name to Giant Sea Dahlia, I would only be restoring an earlier name.
i am actually familiar with this species as i used to work in its habitat. Everyone calls it giant coreopsis and id be shocked to hear it called ‘giant leptosyne’ or ‘giant sea dalia’ (though i think the latter sounds better to be honest). But attempts to make common names match scientific names strike me as both cultural erasure and also futile.
If I search “Leptosyne gigantea”, all the results in the first couple pages have Giant Coreopsis as the common name. That indicates to me that that’s the name most people know the plant by, so it should probably be the default name on iNaturalist. However, if I search “Leptosyne gigantea Giant Sea Dahlia” then there are plenty of results using that name, which indicates that it’s another name people know the plant by, and should be an additional name on iNat so it will come up in search for that name.
Agreed. I’m of the opinion that not every species needs a common name. And those that have one don’t always need to be referred to by their common name, especially if it’s a rather obscure species.
The most confusing thing is that they created numerous genus common names based on species common names. So I would see something identified as “hammerjawed jumping spiders” and assume it was Zygoballus rufipes (which has the legitimate common name “hammerjawed jumping spider”), but that would be incorrect, as the spider was only identified to genus (Zygoballus). Basically, any genus without a common name that contained a species with a common name was given the plural version of that species common name, despite the fact that no one outside of iNaturalist ever used such genus names and in some cases they made no sense at all to apply to the entire genus. For example, many species of Zygoballus don’t have any “hammer process” on their chelicerae, so it makes no sense to call them all “hammerjawed jumping spiders”.
and i can’t imagine Giant Tickseed being a big hit either. The common name doesn’t match the scientific name, if they did, they’d all be the same as the scientific names. This is such a neat plant, weird pulpy thick dead looking sticks that spout floofy leaves and then bright flowers after it rains
of course it is still fine. it’s a common name, people will call it whatever they want. I certainly intend to keep using the common name ‘giant coreopsis’ rather than changing it to match the scientific name when it is probably just going to change again next year anyway.
I thought it was amusing overhearing a group of botanists last summer who insisted on using scientific names, and then half of the conversation was complaining that the scientific names of the plants they were talking about had changed since they learned them. Pros and cons of each option.
I can think of a couple of even worse examples. When Acacia was split up, the true acacias – the ones known by that name in Greek and for which the genus was named – were put in Vachellia, since that would cause less disruption than changing the ~600 species in the Australasian group. And not only is nasturtium (Tropaeolum) not in the genus Nasturtium (watercress), they’re not remotely related and never have been.