Regional names for taxon overrides display language

I use INaturalist in English but I’m located in Turkey. For a while I have been noticing some names were displayed in Turkish. These are taxon with regional Turkish names. I was wondering if this is an intentional decision and if there is a setting to turn this off. Also Turkish is only spoken in Turkey so I don’t see the point in adding regional names.

Where? Mobile app or web? You can set the language for common names in both. However, sometimes some bug causes display of a different language for time to time.

The local names are very important for general public. The English common names may be completely useless for them (they are quite useless for me as an advanced user as well) and the scientific names only very slightly more.

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Both on web and ios app. My language is set as English for everything including the display of common names.

I am aware of importance of the local names, I even added some Turkish names for some taxon. My issue is not the local names but the regional names.


This is how it looks for me. The Italian Wall Lizard is displayed in Turkish everywhere in the platform.

Common name displays in English for me.

There is an open flag for the Turkish common name - which is spelt wrong. Perhaps you can help?
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/609675

That being misspelled is another issue. My problem is that due to my location INaturalist displays regional names to me even though my language is set to English. This happens on taxa with Turkish regional names such as Maniola jurtina, Sturnus vulgaris, etc. I shouldn’t be seeing the regional name if my language is set to English and moreover I don’t this is an appropriate use for regional names. Adding a regional name to Turkey doesn’t make sense as Turkish is only spoken in Turkey.

I do not understand what you call regional names and what you call local names.

Names in various languages certainly do make sense. There is a setting for the laguage for common names both in the app and on the web.
lang

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These are what I’m talking about. Names and regional names under taxonomy section.

You know you can display common names in 3 languages of your choice?

I want them displayed in English only but can’t

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I don’t have a solution to your issue but I guess the point of the Turkish regional name setting is used in cases where, for instance, Turkey and Northern Cyprus use different Turkish-language names for a particular taxon.

In general, regional names should only be set for a language when there is a difference from the default name for that language for a given place. Adding regionalizations unnecessarily can cause some problems. However, I think a lot of people don’t realize how regionalizations work, and add them when they aren’t needed.

It will help to give better advice if you give a screenshot of your language display settings from your profile, an example observation like the Podarcis siculus one above.

For instance, for this observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/86279860 which is in Turkey, I see


which appears to be working as it should, showing the English common name for my settings.

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These are my setting. I also tried to use a VPN to see if that would make any difference but it didn’t

This happens sitewide for me. Both on web and ios app no matter the observation. All taxa with a regional name for Turkey.

and this setting for you ?

Common Name Lexicon Display Order

Currently there is no order as I don’t have a lexicon preference but there was the default English before I removed it while troubleshooting for this issue. Removing it didn’t make any difference

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