There’s currently a push to dramatically change the taxonomy of a common pine species with over 40,000 observations. There’s a flag, but it’s not easy to find, i didn’t know about it until recently and the flag has existed for over 5 years. I’m concerned a small group of people on iNat are making changes that affect many people - over 11,000 observers and 4000 identifiers. I feel that something this dramatic with such dramatic impacts (the change is controversial at least to some people, and the new ‘species’ are not going to always be easy to distinguish)… should be discussed more broadly than a flag. There needs to be discussion here, or a way to notify people involved with the taxon that there’s a proposal. This has happened multiple times in the past too, and it isn’t conductive to community involvement here. One group of people has taxonomic opinions that are not universal, and the community deserves a chance to discuss it.
I’m not sure if people read related threads, but there is some relevant discussion at https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/a-discussion-among-users-before-changing-taxonomy-as-a-general-rule/9310
There’s also a feature request, to let (involved) users know about drafted (rather than already committed) taxon changes:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/notify-users-of-drafted-taxon-changes/38765
if someone wants to merge this into that thread they can, i feel like it’s so old it might not be worth it, but i don’t object to it
Taxonomic changes are usually made by professional taxonomists via publication in the peer-reviewed literature. They should, and usually do, take into account arcane constraints like the rules of nomenclature and evidence for the monophyly of taxa. The role of iNaturalist ought to be to implement the changes so that they reflect the latest improvements in the taxonomy. Yes, it’s often the case that older taxonomies are based on more obvious characters than newer ones, and yes, it can be confusing and annoying when names change for obscure reasons, but there are good reasons to delegate these decisions to specialists and not put them to a popular vote.
Unfortunately, for many groups of organisms (fungi, in my case), there still isn’t a secondary authority to depend on. So iNat has kind of become the place where newly-published changes to taxonomy at genus-level and above gain “acceptance and currency”.
But there are a few people who put those changes into place very quickly and unilaterally, rather than soliciting much in the way of community input.
that isn’t how it’s played out here. I’ll refrain from getting into my normal argument here, but there isn’t some objective truth as to what is or isn’t species, and there isn’t a broad consensus that the extensive changes iNat has implemented are the correct direction for this website and ecology in general. That’s why it is worthy of discussion. We are a community, and we aren’t beholden to one branch of academia. A lot of the ‘specialists’ here are implementing changes based on controversial or even unpublished research.
I am under the impression that the subject of this here thread is not whether professional taxonomists should be replaced by iNaturalist voters…
…but rather if taxonomic changes (usually mirrored by iNaturalist from external ‘expert’ sources such as published papers, or third-party taxo databases) should be better advertised and open to more discussion (i.e. allowing more time and more participants). Especially prior to committing “heavy” changes that are potentially disruptive (to identifiers’ workflow) or even destructive (merge-split operations with no way back, pushing thousands of obs back to genus / out of RG…).
– edit: for the sake of completeness, another related Feature Request (enforce delay before taxon swaps): https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/implement-automatic-delay-for-proposed-taxon-swaps/38701/15
The reason this debate goes on (including the highly predictable post #4 - surprised it took that long) is that it isn’t just about taxonomy. Those of us who have been on the Forums for a long time will have noticed an undercurrent of “experts” in this or that aspect of science whose vision for iNaturalist seems to be “Make it more like academia.” There is a vocal subset of academics – not just on iNaturalist – who would agree that their taxonomic opinions are not universal, but would disagree that “the community” (meaning nontaxonomists) deserves a chance to discuss it.
yes, that’s exactly right. Taxonomy is complex and contentious, but i’m trying not to delve into actual taxonomy here, just what taxonomy is right for iNat.
This used to be a small, streamlined website anyone could easily use to observe taxa. Rapid changes, and very technical splits into semi-cryptic species, aren’t necessarily in the interest of this community, especially controversial ones that even taxonomists don’t agree on. Ultimately it’s the site admins who decide, but they do seem to care about the community, so people should have the right to discuss changes and decide if they benefit us or not.
iNat was meant to be a parallel alternative and complement to academia, not an arm of academia. If it becomes the latter, a bunch of people are excluded from it. It may be that’s where inat is headed, and that would be a shame. I think it’s worth at least pushing back a bit against that. This community is important to me.
I think the flags are a good place to discuss, but I agree that it is almost impossible to know if there is a conversation going on in flags about most taxa unless someone tags you. I have come across many flags where someone proposed something years ago and no one ever responded. I have also found that flags may refer to changes for multiple taxa and only one of those is flagged, which may not be the taxon you’d be looking at. Until there is a better notification system, making a forum post announcing and linking to the flag for changes that could effect very large numbers of observations seems like a good option.
That’s all well and good. However, the current structure of iNat species pages is that any curator (double-check me on that) may add a flag and even create a taxon change, irrespective of their “expertise”. In practice, no one who is a mammalian systematist is typically going to propose a taxon change for moths, for instance. But that latitude is there and in recent years, I’ve seen at least some taxon swaps drafted and committed by well-meaning enthusiasts without the thorough discussion envisioned by the OP.
For instance, if I read an interesting article in some science digest about splitting the Farkleberry Turtle into three species and the article pointed me to some of the relevant primary literature, I don’t really have standing to propose a taxon swap in the field of turtle taxonomy for that. Some background research and communication might quickly allow someone to gear up to pseudo-expert status, but such context is never present in taxon swaps.
I wouldn’t be opposed to some system such as:
a notification being sent to the top ten identifiers + any previous flag raiser on something with >x observations when a taxon change is drafted, and
it not being able to be committed for a week, say. (Another notification sent to the drafter when the week is up to make sure they don’t forget)
I certainly wouldn’t mind more information about taxonomic changes, but I don’t think opening it up to a discussion is fruitful. Most users here are not experts in the relevant taxon and their opinions are therefore not really relevant.
And even among experts there an be ongoing debate for a variety of reasons, sometimes more personal and hidebound than actually scientific and evidence based.
I’m not in favor of a discussion about the changes, but I would like more information about them, and I do think that there should be a only be a small select specialist group that is authorized to make the changes.
As I understand it, this is not really about expertise or research (iNat is no PNAS or biology lab), more about favouring data collection and preservation.
An example: I have seen well-meaning curators hastily commit a destructive change, by mirroring a merge of several species taking place at some “reference” taxoDB (that rather nonsensical, poorly-supported move was soon cancelled and reverted at that taxoDB, but damage was done here at iNat).
Nobody at iNat – world specialist or simple amateur – got a chance to step in, to voice concerns so as to delay things a bit, to gather experts’ insights and doubts about the appropriateness of the change, to warn hundreds of identifiers that their hours of careful ID work were all for nothing and that they should probably quit IDing this stuff altogether since it can – and will – soon be voided in a snap without debate, again and again.
We already have a barrier for huge changes which are a burden on the servers.
Maybe 2 more , intermediate barriers, for changes big enough to be a burden on identifiers and observers.
Can taxon specialists subscribe to flags for their taxon of choice? Say I am interested in Asteraceae - can I see all those flags and follow the discussions? (not a taxon specialist, nor a curator - so mine is a rhetorical question)
If that is true (I have not experienced anything like this on iNat) it would be against any guidelines and should have a sound discussion prior to execution of such a change.
Generally I think changes are less controversial for taxonomists than it may seem to the iNat user who is not interested in systematics.
Ironically - there is sometimes no or very little response when discussion is opened on a flag and users are invited to contribute. I remember the case of resurrecting the genus Terias (used to be Brigitta) being pending for month without a sound discussion taking place.
I think it is good to invite people involved in systematics prior to important changes IF there is anything controversial and only then.
I feel this is exclusionary. Also not everyone who is a curator is as much an expert as they portray themseves as. I would think you’d agree that field ecologists and conservation managers who are the ones affected most by taxonomic change should have the potential to be involved with it on iNaturalist. This site was originally set up primarily for field ecologists and citizen scientists, not just taxonomists.
Yes that is why we need broader discussion. Also taxonomists SHOULD consult other ecologists. The changes they make have big imoacts and some of them seem VERY unaware of the context in which the changes are made. I’ve seen a lot of damage, and if we can’t get the curators to consider this, then we need to make sure there’s some checks and balances
Yeah, but it does still happen.
I’ve just been really surprised and disappointed by the lack of intent by curators to find some consensus or at least compromise in teh community. There are a lot of ways we can make it easier for users if we want to go the revisionism route, but people get very hard line and will not accept the slightest budge from their idea of what ‘species’ is. These ideas are not set in stone or ‘settled science’ as people have been arguing over this definition forever. iNat could really be a leader if we’d be able to find things that work for a wide audience base, but instead i just see one group as having hijacked everything. I really think we need to take a long hard look at what iNat is really for, because if that answer is ‘only taxonomists and everyone else is secondary’, i need to start looking for a different database and i think othrers will want to as well.
Very good and timely topic! I myself struggle with such things on iNat… As it was written - there is a fairly small group of people on iNat who introduce changes that affect many people and do not favor the community, and even devastate it. I fully agree that taxonomic views, even officially published scientifically, are very often highly controversial in the scientific community and are not universal or widely accepted. The fact that new publications appear does not mean scientific consent to demolish science and impose specific names on everyone, because such action is simply violence. As a specialist in plant taxonomy, I am terrified by this phenomenon on iNat, when one curator authoritatively demolishes something that has been working well for many years… Something must be done about it immediately!
To me a big step forward would be to change iNaturalist’s coding so that all taxon changes are 100% reversible. I know nothing about programming so I cannot tell you if such a thing would be difficult, or why taxon changes aren’t already coded that way. It seems like everyone’s pre-swap IDs are still displayed on observations as if they were withdrawn, so can’t they simply be reinstated?