Yes I did put it in earlier.
Sociology versus botany in 1991.
Living languages change, but that doesn’t justify suck it up , buttercup.
I think @bouteloua’s suggestion is the best way forward. Many people only know the common name of an organism and that organism should appear in search results when they use that common name. So to use bouteloua’s example, if you search for squawroot the correct taxon comes up but it’s not really displayed elsewhere.
Very true, although I think it is or at least can be influential in determining which common names people learn.
I think it’s important that common names not be made up for iNaturalist. But if there’s a better existing alternative, I don’t see an issue with making that one the default name. For example, a common, really cool plant here in the Bay Area is Pedicularis densiflora. Probably its most well-known common name is indian warrior, but another one is warrior’s plume. I don’t want this to be about the appropriateness of “indian warrior”, but “warrior’s plume” seems like a fine alternative to list as the default name, and it looks like someone has done so. To me this is a good solution.
Like most issues that devolve into these types of discussions, however, I’m not convinced it’s something that can be hashed out in a general sense. If you think there is an issue with a common name, flag the taxon and start a discussion about it.
If you have a suggestion you think will move this discussion forward please share it. If you’ve said your piece, please don’t rehash it and post it again.
I tend to favor the native names myself when I know them, but I don’t fuss about it. Policing common names is almost an impossible task, beginning with the fact people of European descent erased native names to a large extent during the colonisation. Maybe it seems quite obvious to me because French Canadians adopted many First Nation names for the places and the local wildlife and we still use them. No matter the word rennes (reindeers) comes popping up, I will keep calling them caribous. The name comes from the Mi`k Maq word yalipu shoveler of snow because that’s how they remove the snow to get to the vegetation. Pembina is how we call Viburnum trilobum from the Cree name. The wolverine is another one, we call them carcajou, which is the alguonquin name. The town were I live used to be called Nepisiquit (rough waters), but like many places after the British conquest, it was given the name of some British military dude. Those names really bug the crap out of me because they arks back to a cultural genocide of continental proportions, but I am not convinced spending a lot of energy on fighting the locals over them is a wise use of time, when in regions like mine, the most offensive words of the english language to me are clearcutting, skidder and glyphosate aerial spraying.
I think the offensive names should be removed or stricken minimally. It is a detriment to iNat and its users if the rest of the world uses one name and iNat uses another.
Discussions are always good to have, even if they don’t produce some result. I hope they don’t devolve. Thanks! :)
I get what you are saying but I thought there were things like the N-word that have no non-offensive meaning and are so offensive that you could cause yourself problems just saying the common name
I use an old 1970-ish student dictionary for grade school, don’t remember the publisher but I remembered my mother telling the “N” word did not mean what it does now. And I remember looking it up in that dictionary, and forewarning this is paraphrasing because it was so long ago, but the official definition of a nigger was a crabby, old man. Someone like Ebenezer Scrooge from the Christmas Carol could be called a nigger. I think that’s something we should consider too with “offensive” names because the definitions of a word changes over time and nonpejorative word might become one.
You may want to consider how e.g., Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn and your 1970’s timeline fit together, and the admins/mods of this forum may want to consider closing this topic.
Usage two centuries ago is marked in a dictionary as antiquated - as in this word is no longer used to mean that. The info is in the dictionary for historians and literature scholars.
If you mean having the ability to enter common names just for your account, I’m not sure if this would be technically feasible. As of last week we had something like 670k common names in our database. If we allowed anyone to add their own common names to their account, it could expand that database immensely and bog down the site.
Slight tangent to discuss Forum norms - even though no one here is using racist terms in a derogatory way, let’s please not use them here. “n-word” suffices nicely, for instance.
OK, response to discussion.
On iNat, a common name’s utility is to help someone find the correct taxon to use when identifying an observation or looking up information about a taxon. Many names do have origins that are either expressly offensive and demeaning, or have origins which can be traced back to colonialism, etc, and can be associated with dark times and movements in history.
I don’t think iNaturalist should be an authority on which names are “correct” or “official”, and it should include all names which are in use and will help people find the taxon they’re looking for, unless the name is offensive or denigrating. So erasing most names is not the correct choice. But iNaturalist, especially as it grows, is influential, and oftentimes when someone first encounters a name here, it’s likely the one they’ll remember, so I think iNat has at least some responsibility to curate names with that in mind, especially in regard to which name is the default one for a certain language or place. I don’t think a blanket policy will work, but I think these are good guidelines to follow when flagging a taxon for its name and then discussing what should be done about it:
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is the name in use? It should probably be one of the names associated with that taxon.
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if the name is questionable, is there another less questionable existing name that can be used as the default? Probably best to use the latter name as the default and maybe strikethrough the questionable one.
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Is the name unambiguously offensive in the current zeitgeist? Is the name meant to belittle or denigrate a people or peoples? Probably best to delete it.
I’m going to close this discussion. If you find a questionable name, please flag it and evaluate it on the flag.