| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| kevinfaccenda | warrenmcc | Sterculia subviolacea k schum |
taxon has author |
Sep. 22, 2021 22:58:15 +0000 | kitty12 |
Swap done |
Comments
Check first to see if there are any identifications using the malformed name:
https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?taxon_id=1282760¤t=any (substitute the appropriate taxon_id)
If yes (in this case), it will need to be swapped into a correctly named taxon. If no, the malformed taxon can just be edited and de-activated.
@kueda would it be possible to disable all imports of taxa from EOL until this issue is resolved? It is adding a lot to the curatorial workload...
It's certainly possible, though I'm not aware of any issue. If the problem is that some names are sneaking in with an author, that might not be something we can solve if EOL's API isn't returning an authorless name. IMO, importing taxa does more harm than good at this point, so I'm in favor of weaning ourselves off of it and permanently disabling taxon imports from EOL.
It is currently just an issue on the Forum:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/auto-importer-adding-malformed-names/25669
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-do-i-remove-author-from-base-taxon-name/26425
I agree it would at least be worth a try to stop importing taxa and see how much people miss it.
Otherwise, if it's an EOL API issue, maybe the data it returns could go through some validation code on this end before getting saved in a taxon?
@warrenmcc For now, could you possibly stop using the "search external name providers" option for identification, and instead identify to genus, then flag the genus asking to add the taxon? We've identified a bug in the import process that's causing a lot of extra work for curators. Thanks!
Ok, I can do so but that is going to be quite laborious since I am adding many species that are currently not listed in the iNat taxonomy, so I use the "search external name providers" a lot! I assume that this is going to be just as much work for the curators because I am going to be flagging every new species that needs adding?
@warrenmcc are you adding these taxa because there are observations of them on iNat, or just to make the iNaturalist taxonomy complete?
If the former, then that's great. And you are right, either way there is going to be more curatorial work. In that case, if you can flag a genus or family as "please add these species," and then list all of the needed species (and their source(s)) in a single comment, that would help make the work more efficient.
But if it's the latter, it's not really the goal of iNaturalist to have every named species in its taxonomic database. iNat taxa are there to support identifications of observations. If we eventually have observations of every known species on the planet, then great. But the observations should come first, and the taxa should get added as needed.
I work in remote parts of Africa and as a result I have many photos of species that are not yet represented on iNat, which is why I am constantly flagging genera and asking for species to be added. Since I am loading species per project, it will be quite difficult to list which species in a genus need adding, as you suggest. I figure this out as I upload photos and realise that the species are not yet listed on iNat. I'm definitely not trying to just make the iNat taxonomy complete - merely want to upload my photos which happen to be of species not yet listed. I am happy to carry on flagging genera and asking for species to be added and will do the same when I see that the external name provider is pulling in the author citation as well (quite often this doesn't happen - it seems to be quite random).
Thanks for the additional information @warrenmcc, and for your contributions to iNaturalist! Interesting to hear that the issue with author citations coming in is not so frequent. Maybe it will end up being more efficient to just fix the ones that do come in, as we currently have been. Others can chime in, but I would say just keep doing what you have been doing, and we'll deal with it as best we can. If the site decides to disable imports of taxa from external sites, then we'll switch to the flagging route instead. Cheers!
@warrenmcc It's extra steps to add the species with the proper name, then do a swap to the new proper name. If you just flag the higher taxon for the addition, it's a single step of adding the name. Cheers, and thanks for adding so many observations of new species! It's always exciting to me to see new places on the maps getting populated with observations of new (to us) species.
@kueda FWIW, I think disabling taxon imports sounds like a good idea--the small amount of added convenience over doing it manually is outweighed by issues like this problem, creating taxa above family that can't be grafted except by staff, importing undesired fossil taxa, and so on.
Should an admin modify this to remove the author? Or should it just be swapped into a (new) correctly named taxon