Continuing the discussion from How should I handle a new species that POWO lists as "unplaced"?:
The flag in question is for Philodendron imbe. The creator of the flag stated as the reason, “this name is unplaced.” However, as there are seven observation, the taxon cannot simply be deactivated. Would this be a case of resolving the flag in favor of deviating from POWO, or is there another approved resolution? If the Curator Guide covers this situation, I haven’t found it.
there is no way to resolve this type of flag without having an update from in the literature – just leave it open. unplaced names require an actual nomenclatural fix to be published to catch up to the taxonomy. this is not really something that can be fixed all on iNaturalist – even if the near-term decision is to establish a deviation, it’s best to leave the flag open as there is likely still a relevant scientific debate still happening in the background offsite.
flags have no intrinsic urgency anyway, so there should be no issue with letting it sit.
You don’t resolve the flag until a new name is published for this taxon. Just leave the flag open, with no deviation.
I believe the name in question does not have nomenclatural issues.
Philodendron imbe | International Plant Names Index
It seems to me that very often the ‘unplaced’ flag in POWO means simply that the Kew curators have not got around to reviewing the status of that name and/or there is no recent revision with a reliable opinion. I expect there are tens of thousands of such names. In these cases I don’t believe that a POWO ‘unplaced’ flag is sufficient justification for the name to be automatically excluded from iNat. In those cases involving long forgotten names then they probably shouldn’t have been added in the first place. Some people don’t seem to realize that iNat is not a repository for all names that have appeared somewhere. IMO those names should be inactivated. However, there are other cases where the name is in current use, despite the absence of revision by POWO, and they should be kept. The iNat flagging of all names that are ‘unplaced’ in POWO might serve some purpose to identify names that need inactivating. Otherwise I don’t think ‘unplaced’ generally means much.
All names (unplaced or not) in POWO have been reviewed.
It is not always a nomenclatural problem.
See : https://powo.science.kew.org/about-wcvp#unplacednames
Most of the time, it is :
no correct name is available in an accepted genus
and I think this is the case with Philodendron imbe.
These names should not be deactivated : the concept is good, it’s just the name that is not the good name.
The iNat flagging of unplaced names is not intended to identify names that need to be inactivated, but to draw attention to the need of change of the name. I have seen many cases where some inatters have provided a publication that allowed a feedback to be sent to POWO and POWO un-unplaced the name (and POWO can’t see all publications).
Best to leave the flag open, until an official taxonomic update, no urgency to resolve it immediately.