Deleted(?) common names reappearing in some places and/or inconsistent

Bug Reports
1

Platform:
Website, API, export observations as CSV

App version number, if a mobile app issue:

Browser, if a website issue:
Firefox

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/60783-Pluteus
https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa?taxon_id=60783&rank=genus&per_page=1&preferred_place_id=14&order=desc&order_by=observations_count

Screenshots of what you are seeing:

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Description of problem:

Step 1:
Look at the taxon page for genus Pluteus. In the “Taxonomy” tab, the list of names lists for English:
“Deer Mushrooms” crossed out
“Shields” not crossed out

I don’t know if that means that iNaturalist should no longer display “deer mushrooms” as a common name. Either way, it’s weird that I get a mix of “deer mushrooms” or “shields” for the common name, depending on where I look.

Step 2:
Notice that the window title (from the <title> HTML tag) is “Shields”.

Step 3:
Notice that the common name at the top of the page is “Deer Mushrooms”.

Step 4:
Query the iNaturalist API:
https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa?taxon_id=60783&rank=genus&per_page=1&preferred_place_id=14&order=desc&order_by=observations_count
The resulting JSON includes the following:
preferred_common_name: “Deer Mushrooms”

Note that I gave my region to the API as California (preferred_place_id=14) to match my region when logged into the website.

Step 5:
Export any observation of the genus (while logged in as an English speaker):
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export
(e.g. Exact Rank = Genus, Taxon IDs = 60783)
Notice that the common name is listed as “Shields”.

So what’s really the common name for my language/region?

I also noticed the same issues for Diastrophus kincaidii:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/205631-Diastrophus-kincaidii

2

I agree that this is non-optimal behavior and may be unintended. Generally, having an “unaccepted” common name for a taxon is for the purpose of allowing search to find it, but not displaying it otherwise. I am guessing that reprioritizing the names so that “Shields” was prioritized would fix the display issue. But I haven’t done that so that the issue can be seen here. I think it would be best if unaccepted names didn’t show even if they are prioritized.

Based on reading the reasoning for making the name unaccepted, I think it should probably just be deleted, but again, leaving it as is for now so that the issue can be verified.