Not sure if this problem has been addressed before, but the kind of situation i’m concerned with is this:
“Gen. A sp. B” has been swapped to “Gen. C sp. B”. Observations with ID of “Gen. C” (generic level) after an initial ID of “Gen. A sp. B” are now stuck with “Gen. C” as their community ID.
The problem here is not with the taxon swap. When a taxon swap happens like the one you describe, IDs at genus level will be bumped up to the new common denominator of Genus A and Genus C.
In this case the observation was correctly identified as Setabis heliodora and then a user disagreed, and said it was Genus Sanguinea - writing ‘Sanguinea heliodora’ in a comment. In doing this they were not really disagreeing with the ID - they were really disagreeing with iNat’s taxonomy (at the time). This is what has messed it up.
The taxon change then moved Setabis heliodora to Sanguinea. Everything was correct. But because the user said it was not Setasbis heliodora, their disagreement now says that it is not Sanguinea heliodora - this has also updated correctly.
Tag the user back in with a comment and politely ask them to withdraw their disagreement.
“In doing this they were not really disagreeing with the ID - they were really disagreeing with iNat’s taxonomy (at the time). This is what has messed it up.”
Thanks, this is the problem i was alluding to in my statement “I’m not sure if the problem here is the initial conflict caused by the “Gen. C ” ID after my “Gen. A sp. B ” ID.”
I find it odd that iNat only looks at what’s the same or what’s different but doesn’t actually look at the reality of the situation - that everyone is ad idem with the ID. It happens quite frequently, unfortunately
Why can’t iNat in situations like this ignore the inactive taxon and take only the IDs that have descended from the Genus that the inactive taxon was swapped to (ie. Sanguinea), thereby nullifying the original “disagreement”?
I moved to general because the system is working as intended in this case, but fine to continue Discussion about how iNat works and potential ways to improve it.
I disagree actually. If someone has said it is not that species, then if the name changes their disagreement should still stand. A name is not the ‘reality of the situation’, it is just a label. The ‘reality of the situation’ is that if something is ‘not that moth’, then it’s still ‘not that moth’ even if the genus changes. What they should really have done is say ‘yes I agree it is that moth, but I think it should have a different name’ - and then raised a flag against the taxon to suggest a change to the taxonomy.
If I disagreed with something, and my disagreement was cancelled just because the name changed, I’d be annoyed (in fact there is an issue where this sometimes happens being discussed on another thread… and people are a tad annoyed, because their work is being undone!).
If we use a site like iNat or any other, we have to accept the taxonomy that is currently in place there, even if we think it needs updating or whatever, or problems like this will inevitably result.