I’m not as disturbed as you are by this phenomenon. It’s very clear from the record that Alex Abair identified the plant as Bahia absinthifolia and that iNaturalist subsequently transferred everything with that name to Picradeniopsis absinthifolia, treating the two names as synonyms. Alex might or might not agree that the species should be placed in Picradeniopsis rather than Bahia, but he clearly considers it this species, wherever iNaturalist places it.
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If you’re worried about this then can’t you put your original ID in the Notes? That would then be similar to something a botanist might scribble on a specimen sheet; in fact I treat the notes section as exactly that which is why I try to add things like measurements, habitat notes, how common the plant is at the location and other stuff to the notes of my observations that might not be apparent in the photos. In general I basically treat the notes exactly the same as annotations on a specimen sheet (I try to do it for all observations but sometimes I get a bit lazy). I don’t normally put an ID in the notes but there’s no reason you cannot. I’m not sure if that solves what you’re talking about though – I may be misreading
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It’s OK that we are bothered by different things. :-)
Yes, there are work-arounds. However, users of the data are likely to look for information about identifications in the parts of the data structure specifically designed for that purpose. And, you know, that’s a reasonable thing for them to do. :-)
So I can put information in places where I expect people not to see it. There are contexts in which that’s a good thing, but it’s not generally what one desires of one’s data.
You might consider that when you say “iNaturalist subsequently transferred everything with that name…” your attribution is different from that given by iNaturalist.
Think of it like an annotation label that contains a plant name, a person’s name, and a date. The prima facie interpretation is “this person applied that name to this plant on this date”. If it is obvious to you that the correct interpretation is different from that prima facie interpretation, you should expect that this discrepancy will cause confusion–whether it causes confusion for you or not.
I don’t believe there is even such a thing as correct ID.
Mine, of course.
;-)
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Seems like this is a topic that warrants its own separate discussion from this one, as the two are not directly related. Still unsure what the issue is.
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[quote=“bdagley, post:84, topic:29801”]
Your argument seems most applicable to cases where you disagree or would disagree with many revisions.[/quote]
Not at all. If I identify an observation as Heterotheca hirsutissima, this is simply a fact about that observation. Someone fifty years from now can identify it however they like. Maybe they call it Heterotheca nova. If they say that I identified it as Heterotheca nova, though, that will simply be false. Whether I would agree with that identification is totally irrelevant. If that isn’t what I called it, that isn’t what I called it.
“not wanting to agree”—Again, no, that’s not the issue.
I don’t think this is quite true. As an example, my observation https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104901365 is on GBIF (https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/3456522148) The notes from the observation have been transferred over (as Occurrence remarks) and the Plant Phenology has been transferred over as well (as Reproductive condition). Not everything is transferred across as you mention (e.g. I can’t find any of my custom annotations), but at least those 2 things are. If I download my observations from ALA (Australia’s GBIF node) I get a whole heap of other stuff as well (e.g. sex, lifeStage, reproductiveCondition, behavior and about 20 other fields).
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Well, if my saying “no, that’s not what I meant” wasn’t helpful for that part, I guess I’m not sure what you’re hoping to get from my saying it again for all the other parts. :-)
My IDs do not change. Whether I want them to or not is irrelevant. It’s not a question of preference, it’s a question of fact.
“Although you did ID it as the taxon that was later revised to the latter (what most consider to be the process of your first ID simply being updated to become the new valid-synonym, i.e. same taxon).”
From my point of view, this is falsification of data.
“You seem to want to retain records of IDs even if/after they become invalided by later revisions.”
There is no invalidation involved. That’s just not how any of this works.
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I mean they don’t change. Opting in to community ID does not affect this. It means IDs will be falsely attributed to you. Your ID still does not change.
And, no, there is no “past synonym becoming invalid”. That is not what happens.
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Not arguing with you here, but I’ve always questioned the idea that any lower-level taxon can be considered “invalid” since all names are hypotheses about relationships and can be revised based on new data. There are many old taxonomic names and arrangements that fell out of use for a century or more and then were resurrected many years later based on new data provided by systematics research. Almost any “invalid” taxon is perhaps only temporarily so, with some higher-level exceptions of course (e.g., I don’t think bats are likely to be lumped back in with primates or rodents at any point … but maybe I’m wrong!).
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The “accepted” and “not accepted” designations by ITIS are statements of opinion. Both Sedum album L. and Oreosedum album (L.) Grulich are validly published, legitimate names. If one believes the species is placed in the genus Sedum, one should call it Sedum album. If one believes the species is placed in the genus Oreosedum, one should call it Oreosedum album. The opinion of ITIS, that it should be placed in the genus Sedum, does not in any way affect the validity, legitimacy, or availability of either name.
“Instead as I said, when I refer to ID’s changing as part of a taxon swap (due to a taxonomic revision) I didn’t mean you changed what your original ID was, I meant iNat changes (revises) the name of the ID itself which has been submitted to the system (for users who opt in at least).”
If you wanted to find all of the observations that I have identified as Mertensia foliosa, how would you do it?
If you had a set of a few thousand identifications from iNaturalist and you needed to separate out which of those identifications were made by the user to whom they are attributed, and which were not, how would you do it? I.e., when iNaturalist says “[username] suggested an ID” with a name below it, we know that this is sometimes true, sometimes false–how would we differentiate the two?
Check the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. Let me know where you find any statement in there that says “a name is invalid if an official taxonomic authority like ITIS says it is not accepted”. :-)
“We certainly do only call the active one “valid” in such cases” – You might. :-) I don’t. ICNafp does not. ITIS does not. Tropicos does not. USDA PLANTS does not. POWO does not.
You really should check ICNafp. Oreosedum album (L.) Grulich is a validly published, legitimate name. There isn’t anything funny about that particular example and it’s not a question about whether or not the generic placement is “contested”. The validity & legitimacy of the name is a totally separate question. Whether or not you or I or ITIS or anyone else thinks this species should be placed in the genus Sedum has precisely zero bearing on it.