Diacritic marks in scientific names

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I came across this recently: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/742760. Article 27 of the ICZN states that diacritic marks are not to be used in scientific names. The ‘source’ link is broken for this taxon, but the 2018 checklist has the correct name (http://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2018/details/species/id/34d4c16dd0d39e4e5ebf4eca7a63d2cd), and it does not appear to have been updated since 2011. So I’m not sure what happened here.

At any rate, is there a way to prevent iNaturalist from accepting scientific names with diacritic marks?

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Yes, I agree that names with diacritics should just be rejected, so that the curator has to go find the correct form of the name. It would be too difficult for the system to make a correct “translation” in every case.

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The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature has an equivalent section: https://www.iapt-taxon.org/nomen/pages/main/art_60.html#Art60.7

It says: “Diacritical signs are not used in scientific names. When names (either new or old) are drawn from words in which such signs appear, the signs are to be suppressed with the necessary transcription of the letters so modified”

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Alright, we’ve updated the website to accept only latin characters, hyphens, and × for any newly-added scientific names. This won’t remove diacritic marks on older taxa, however.

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