Subspecies "ssp." abbreviation is incorrect

General
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Even for plants, the shift to making “subsp.” required is recent.* (It’s been used for a long time, but “ssp.” has been used at least as long.

  • Relatively recent. Some things I view as recent are older than some you. However, I think the change in the Code really is recent.
43

From what I can tell, the recommendation to use “subsp.” is only about 20 years old, appearing in the Vienna Code (2006), but not in the St. Louis Code (2000). Indeed, it appears to have been proposed in this February 2005 article in Taxon. The rapporteurs responded that “no problems are forseen if [recommendation 5A] were to be accepted.”

2 Likes
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this seems like an awfully glib way to put the issue when, again, “ssp.” was misspelled as “spp.” multiple times in this thread in a manner that was very confusing.

4 Likes
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Alright, so far we’ve heard:

  • A few zoologist imply in different ways that all of botany, mycology and phycology don’t exist/matter, and we should just get rid of subspecies altogether because they don’t use them much
  • Some ppl remark that infraspecific ranks are not used consistently and should just go
  • A person imply it’s silly to confuse ssp. with spp. because they’re spelled differently

Can we please stick to the topic at hand. My gripes: this is not an error or mistake as stated in the topic title. There is a recommendation that the spelling subsp. be employed for the names of plants, fungi, and algae, not a requirement.

Should iNat roll this out to both codes?

Pros:

  • Less possibility of confusion
  • Would follow a recommendation for one of the codes.

Cons:

  • Change
  • Not really a priority
  • Technically not required for animals
4 Likes
46

Let’s wait until all codes agree and revisit in 2030.

1 Like
47

If someone feels this should be a feature request, it seems worth making and having that discussion in a feature request. I personally don’t think it matters if ssp. is changed to subsp. or not, but I also don’t think it would hurt. It’s just a matter if it is something easy for iNat to do or not. It might be just a matter of changing a couple lines of code.

I do think it is interesting that this recommendation is a recent addition to the botanic code, which would explain why so many websites and books use ssp. and not subsp. ITIS and USDA Plants both pre-date the recommendation. Certainly from the book perspective, I think ssp. was likely used to save space, and there could be an argument to save space on phone screens for those people that use the app. Two letters probably doesn’t make much difference though. The argument about ssp. being confused with spp. doesn’t seem to really apply to iNat as there is no reason to use spp. on iNat.

6 Likes
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there is no reason for the interface to use “spp.” perhaps, but individual users use the abbreviation for multiple species all the time. in the course of this topic several people confused the two abbreviations and proved the point.
my official position is that if it’s trivial to change the display of “ssp.” to “subsp.” throughout the site — as suspected — then it should be done. if for some reason it isn’t so easy, then no one should bother.

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