While iNat strives to maintain a single taxonomy that is managed by its site curators, any user can add a common name to a taxon and edit any common names they have added. Staff and site curators can edit and manage all common names. Please only add common names which already exist, and please follow the Guidelines for adding common names. Please do not make up common names.
A common name must be associated with a lexicon, and may be associated with a place.
If the name is the only one listed for a lexicon into which iNaturalist has been translated (eg Japanese, Spanish, Russian), it will be the default name for users who have chosen that lexicon as their locale. If there is more than one name per locale, a curator can edit the order for that lexicon.
The place association is meant to deal with two situations:
Within a widely-spoken lexicon, such as English or Spanish, common names for a single taxon vary by location. For example New Zealand and southern Africa have different common names for Carpobrotus edulis - edible sourfig and sea fig, respectively.
iNaturalist has not been translated into the name’s lexicon.
In either situation, in your Account Settings, you can choose a place preference for common names and if a common name associated with that place exists, you’ll see that common name regardless of your account’s locale. If no common name is associated with that place, you will see the default common name for your chosen locale.
Here are directions for how to add a common name. I’m going pretend that “feral wilderness prophet” is the most popular English common name for Lepus californicus in the state of California.
Scroll down to “Names”. You will see existing names on the left, as well as which lexicon they are associated with. On the right you will see the “Add a Name” button as well as “About Names”. Please read the “About Names” text.
Click on the “Add a Name” button and you’ll be taken to the following screen. Please read and follow the Guidelines. If you have any questions, flag the taxon or ask about the appropriateness of your suggested name on the Forum.
If everything looks good, press Save. The name will now be listed on the taxon’s page, and you will see an “Edit” link next to it, since you created it.
For clarification, does this mean that the name must be a commonly used name? Or could one enter a name proposed by an organization such as the Entomological Society of America but which is not commonly used (at least, not yet).
Thanks, I see how that could be confusing and I changed it to just
only add common names which already exist
Functionally, on iNat, common names help people find the right taxon when they’re adding an ID, so in my opinion it’s best to focus on adding names that are commonly in use or that might become so. So I think your example of an ESA name is a good one and it’d be fine to add to iNat. I don’t think well ever have an airtight definition of what common name’s should be used on iNat, but adding an official name from a body like ESA seems good, as does adding an unofficial name like “B-52” for Periplaneta americana in Hawaii (that’s what everyone called them when I grew up there).
Sounds like the perfect example of a truly common name, and one that IMO should, for that reason, be the default in preference to any “official” name for the same species.
This is supporting invention of novel names on iNat since any invented name on iNat might become commonly used. This whole “novel common names” topic has been discussed many (perhaps too many) times elsewhere. There is clearly disagreement among users, curators, forum moderators and likely iNaturalist staff what are the characteristics of an acceptable default common name and the non-specific guidelines are not helping: e.g. curator guidelines state in one sentence that names not in common usage should not be used but then in several paragraphs describes how to literally design a good common name (https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide) - this is not helping to clarify the position of iNat either.
I’m termite researcher and soon after I discovered iNat I was trying to revise termite names obviously invented by iNat users and massively misleading. I’m starting to ignore them because the guidelines are unclear to the point where it is just a personal opinion what is a good common name. I do not want to argue with users who submitted in my opinion unsuitable common name because there are no iNat guidelines to support me. Deleting someone’s common name is perceived as offensive act so there is a lot of friction which prevents it. Also, inventors of common names understandibly defend their common names - causing further frictions to remove common names once introduced to iNat. If iNat will not control the creation of common names it is unlikely the fix will happen later on via their removal. I think this situation is compromising the functionality of iNat to engage people into a sensible interaction with nature. I’ll be happy to help and I’m sure many other iNat users will be also willing to help draft a more specific guideline if iNat staff will ask for it.
I think there must be a misunderstanding here. I don’t see any place in the guidelines where you are asked or encouraged to make a new common name. The language could be clearer but it only talks about appropriate application of existing names.
Regarding deleting common names, it’s true that you shouldn’t do so just because you personally don’t use the name. I think it’s to discourage, say, a British curator from deleting all the American names or v.va, not to prevent a Curator from deleting names that are not in common use at all.
Citation from curator guidelines: " […] if the species is Cola coke and it has the subspecies Cola coke ssp. classic and Cola coke ssp. zero, […] try to choose unique common names like “Coke Classic” and “Coke Zero.” How is this not guiding curators in creation of common names?
Of course. I never suggested I would delete anything because I don’t use it.
I do not understand what “not in common use at all” means. I understand the purpose of common names and the fact that there are regional common names.
I actually do not want to start again the discussion on common names invention on iNat (I spent exessive time with it in different topics). I just wanted to point out how the comment of @tiwane illustrates the lack of more clear guidelines on common names. I might not be able to continue with the discussion but thanks for the opinions!
I think it just means select unique and specific common names from the set of already-in-use common names. So even if some people use “lady beetle” for Harmonia axyridis and some people also use “lady beetle” for Coccinella septempunctata, rather than add “lady beetle” to both species, you should select “Asian Lady Beetle” and “Seven-spotted Lady Beetle” – names which are also already in use, but are unique and specific.
It doesn’t say “make up names” - it means that if the name exists somewhere (say in a guide about to be published) but isn’t widespread it’s OK to add.
Yes, that’s what it means. If it’s not clear, it can be revised.
Sure, I can understand that this is probably what you meant but it is not explicit - that’s why I’m being so annoying and keep repeating that the current guideline saying that common name is a name “in usage” or “name exists somewhere” is as good as no guideline. Or perhaps worse: users who want to invent names will do so and once they do, it is difficult to reverse it because once a common name is in the system it is considered necessary to prove that the name really “does not exist somewhere” before it can be deleted while it is not necessary to prove with the same effort that the common name “exists somewhere” when being submitted.
Most of these paragraphs describe “adding” common names, just few times “choosing” is used. Again, I do not want to troll over word choice - I’m trying to show how the guidelines suffer from surprising lack of description of the criteria for a suitable common name which contributes (together with lack of functionalities that check if a suggested common name is “in usage”) to the invention of common names and the propagation of iNat-originated common names or propagation of names that have a single occurrence “anywhere”. I’m just still surprised that iNat gives to any user a tool that can instantaneously generate the default names which are by most iNaturalists likely considered one of the main outputs of the platform.
Thanks. I agree the wording can be improved and we need to improve all of our documentation. That being said, I’d be surprised if most people adding “invented” common names read the guidelines or curator guide - I think most people (including myself at times, I admit) don’t read things like that or may not notice them.
When iNat was much smaller (which wasn’t that long ago) tools like this were probably necessary as we were building up a database from a much smaller starting place and needed lots of help. And the community was smaller so the chances of misuse were slimmer. Now that iNat’s much bigger I think it’s worth re-evaluating.
Tony, your phrasing is a perfect segway to a point I want to make: The word “invention” frequently has an unfortunate pejorative connation in the discussions of common names. And the phrase “in common use”, as your portrayal of iNaturalist implies, is often taken to mean “somewhere else”. But where is that “somewhere else”? or rather, why “somewhere else”?
As you point out, iNaturalist has grown significantly since its creation and the construction of common name guidance. Staff may correct me, but I would make a poorly-researched guess that iNaturalist is now the most widespread and popular public repository of natural history sightings in the world. It’s use is not evenly distributed around the globe, but it is pervasive, at least in most English and Spanish-speaking nations. This does not place iNaturalist as an authoritative source for anything, but it at least offers a seed for the argument that a common name properly constructed, explained, and documented on iNaturalist is an “invention” worthy of recognition. I fully expect knowledgeable professionals like @alesbucek may recoil at this suggestion, but for better or worse, in the absence of a taxonomic authority (organizational or individual) and/or published reference, I will argue that a suitable common name offered for use on iNaturalist by a curator or taxonomic author familiar with a group of species should now be received as legitimate and useful.
From my argument, a suggestion for the framework of common name “invention” (read: “creation”) on iNaturalist might proceed as follows:
A common name may be added to a taxon when no such name exists in a published popular or scientific reference authored by either by an organization with taxonomic responsibilities (e.g., Entomological Society of America, American Ornithological Society) or by individual taxonomic authorities.
Common names may be added only by staff, administrators, or curators. Individual iNaturalist users who are also researchers sufficiently familiar with the published literature and systematics of a group to make informed judgements as to the existence and appropriateness of such names may request curatorial status to accomplish such name additions.
Common name creation, as with other taxonomic additions or changes, should have associated metadata in the form of at least a minimal etymological explanation. They may be sourced from regional vernacular names or may be derived from a suitable translation of a recognized scientific name.
I rarely run into a common that is not in use - sure, it happens occasionally, but not commonly and it seems most users who actually know how to add common names know how to use them correctly.
It would also be an issue in less-widely-spoken languages, where in many cases one user is responsible for adding all of the common names in that language.
This type of change would put iNat in the position of evaluating whether or not certain people have the expertise to create common names. iNat’s already in a position where it has to evaluate some people’s ability to do certain jobs (mainly curators), and it’s a big job that is difficult. The costs of getting common name curation wrong would be hard to reverse and likely to lead to conflict in my opinion, and would end up being a timesuck.
The creation of common names de novo isn’t a benefit in and of itself. The point of allowing people to add existing common names to iNat is so that users will be able to find the name of an organism that they already know when uploading an observation. This is an important goal, as it increases the usability of the site to a wider base of people. But this advantage doesn’t exist for de novo common names - by definition these names aren’t in use yet, so users won’t come to the site knowing them and wanting to use them. In fact, they could confuse users who see an unfamiliar name and think they might be making the wrong ID! I realize that there are arguments that could be made that adding new common names would improve communication in the longer run perhaps, but these seem much more “hand-wavey” to me.
In short, I think implementing the addition of de novo common names doesn’t really have clear benefits that would justify the time and likely headaches that change would cause for iNat.
Fair enough, @cthawley. Your points about staffing and curation workloads are well taken. I think my main point is that iNat, for better or worse, by the breadth of its coverage and popularity of its use in many counties, has already positioned itself as a repository of primary information–whether that was the original intent of the creators or not. Passively “allowing people to add existing common names … so that users will be able to find the name of an organism that they already know” might have been an appropriate framework for that new-kid-on-the-block back in 2008-2011. I think the platform has evolved since then.
I continue to support the concept that iNaturalist should not be viewed or held as a taxonomic authority or arbiter. But I believe that iNaturalist has now matured to a point where it can serve as a legitimate entry point for new information such as a common name proposal, within some type of guidelines as I suggest above.
