Or provide for a setting to do so at the user’s discretion. Currently, when using the system suggestions for species, if you select a higher than species level taxon and it has a common name, the system changes the entry to the common name. If this is a genus, and you know that’s the genus you want and you select it, you have to start all over again. For instance, if I see a bird I’m sure is a Sialia sialis, the computer vision may suggest that genus correctly, but not have the species on the list. If I select the genus, it changes the name to ‘Bluebirds’ and then I have enter the entire name manually. This isn’t a problem for species with no common name. Aplysina is a good example of a genus the computer vision readily recognizes, so I can just select that, then press space and often the species I need appears on the list. This is very fast. But for anything that has a common name, I have to type the entire name in.
Please pardon if I have misunderstood, but I am not seeing this behavior. I think this is because I changed a setting in my profile on iNaturalist:
The last item, Show scientific names first, was off by default. I enabled this and I seem to only see scientific names in the computer vision ID suggestions (the common name appears as a subtitle only after I submit the identification). You should be able to access your profile at:
https://www.inaturalist.org/people/me/edit
Again, pardon me if I misconstrued the behavior you are describing.
Ah yes. That’s exactly what I meant. I guess no need for a new feature if it already exists. I must’ve missed it.
Hmm. I just realized, while this is great for IDing, it erases all common names from taxon profiles, so I can’t tell if a common name has been added or not.
No, no. I mean at the top of the profile. Normally it shows both common and scientific names. I don’t care, personally because I only use scientific names, but I know common names of a lot of species most people have very few observations of.
Ah, I see. I believe that’s just the trade off for displaying scientific names.
I think the search bar at the top should still find common names, if you want to see scientific names but occasionally look for a common one in another tab when you are identifying.
Or you could open the profile page and scroll down in the taxonomy tab to find the common names. The tabs on the taxon profile are “sticky”, so if it’s the tab you were last visiting on another profile page, it’s not even an extra click.
It does. I tried it.
This is a case of out of sight, out of mind. I’m usually ID’ing and editing too fast to mess around down there unless I’m perusing a genus for all its species. I almost never notice whether a species has a comon name or not even when it’s at the top. I was just pointing out there was a small flaw with this method because I noticed a species was missing a common name and when I tried to enter it it said it was already there, and it dawned on me it was hidden by my options.
Thanks for the screen shot. I changed my profile way back when it was just the option for scientific names only and sometimes I want to see the common name, especially for animals. It’s nice that there’s now the option to show the common name second.