Flag for Taxon: Translation missing: all_taxa.unkown (Genus Unkown)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dianastuder | dryocopus | Genus Unkown |
still broken |
Oct. 29, 2022 20:57:29 +0000 | Not Resolved |
Comments
According to the taxon source - EOL - Unkown (note not unkNown) is a genus in the family Poaceae containing 40 species (https://eol.org/pages/57405671/names), but it doesn't seem recognised anywhere else - certainly not POWO. (EDIT a couple more references in links below, but they may be dependent)
@sedgequeen have you got any idea where the species that are supposedly in this genus (according to EOL) have ended up?
Unkown adenoptera
Unkown brasiliensis
Unkown canadensis
Unkown carthagenensis
Unkown condensatus
Unkown consanguinea
Unkown elegans
Unkown erianthus
Unkown fiebrigii
Unkown flavescens
Unkown gerascanthus
Unkown glaucescens
Unkown glaucifolius
Unkown glaucus
Unkown grandiflora
Unkown hoffmannseggiana
Unkown jamesoni
Unkown leucodermis
Unkown macrocarpa
Unkown mariana
Unkown megapotamicus
Unkown micranthus
Unkown minuscula
Unkown nana
Unkown obscurum
Unkown octonervia
Unkown palmata
Unkown peduncularis
Unkown pflanzii
Unkown philadelphicus
Unkown prunifolium
Unkown rhoifolium
Unkown rivularis
Unkown triticoides
Unkown uruguayensis
Unkown versicolor
Unkown vulgare
Unkown wessneriana
Unkown wittigiana
Unkown yoshinagae
Another reference possibly dependant https://www.mindat.org/taxon-8161340.html
Seems to link at least one species to Elymus https://www.mindat.org/taxon-5290259.html
No idea what to make of this either http://www.onezoom.org/AT/@Unkown=5760267?img=best_any&anim=flight#x1079,y320,w0.7566
Also puts it close to Elymus
Unkown is not in W3Tropicos, which I go to for taxonomic things. Best to consult two grass experts at the Smithosonian: Dr. Robert Soreng, sorengr@si.edu and Dr. Paul Peterson, peterson@si.edu If they don't know, I don't know what to recommend.
Since you're dealing with the flag, @dianastuder , I recomment that you be the one to contact them.
This is no use at all, I realize, but trying this term on Google Scholar is a great way to find some typos in scientific papers!
I will wait for a taxon specialist. I am lost in anything grass.
My problem child is a mystery - and definitely not a grass of any sort.
Sigh - perhaps as simple as newbies typoing Unk(n)own
but then why does iNat accept it as a 'valid' taxon?? Creating a cascade of problems.
The second obs for This Taxon is in Australia. Also Not A Grass. Simply Unknown I guess.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/140469386
I'm sure the actual IDs are from people mistyping 'unknown' in the file names before uploading. Sorry, I missed these responses! I'm not sure it can be 'properly' deleted, but if could be merged legitimately with a current synonym they would at least appear in someome's workflow and it would be more likely that the observer would notice their error...
This seems to be not really a significant problem because the community taxon algorithm does just treat an ID to 'unkown' as if they actually had somehow managed to ID it as 'unknown', e.g. it puts it up in the state of matter life searches and doesn't count as a disagreement with anything. There are only 10 'unkown' IDs that don't have at least some kind of real ID and they are all casual for some different reason. There are less than 200 total unkown IDs. So can we just resolve this flag and accept that very occasionally it will result in zero impact nonsense IDs? If not, we need to contact staff to see if they have some kind of technical way to delete the nonsense genus.
It is not resolved.
It needs to be impossible for someone to choose 'UNknown' as an ID, whether actively and deliberately (I don't know what that is) or by mistake.
That Unknown taxon needs to be removed.
@tiwane do you know if completely deleting a taxa is technically possible? Or, if not, somehow blocking future placeholders of 'unkown' from being interpreted as this nonsense taxa instead of just a text placeholder?
Ooh, this flag! Yes, let's think about this again :)
@dryocopus You are listed as the creator of this genus - can you remember what you had in mind? Are you even aware of having created it in June 2021?
I checked on POWO and there is no genus that contains even synonyms with all those species name, and in a lot of cases there are no grasses with those species names; for example, POWO says there is no accepted species with the name 'wessneriana', and the synonymous species it could be are all cactuses, and we already have something to correspond to every possible name. 'Octonervia' could be an acacia, a mint, or a primrose, but not a cactus, and again inat already has all the accepted names it could possibly be referring to. There are over 2,000 things 'grandiflora' could possibly be referring to. Many of those names are like that in that they could refer to almost anything, we'd never guess which, and they may well already be in the database under the correct name.
So this is most likely just a series of completely unrelated, probably automatic import errors for unrelated taxa that all had the same misspelled 'unkown' for the genus, and I guess probably the first time it happened it was something with an unknown genus in grasses so it randomly got put there.
The best thing to do is either to have the staff find a technical solution or to just live with a few dozen nonsense IDs out of 10s of millions per year.
I suspect it came about as a result of the aforementioned @dryocopus clicking 'Search external name providers' after accidentally mispelling 'Unknown', but they are still active on the site so it is worth seeing if they have a memory of it.
Once we've heard from @dryocopus, if the genus just needs to disappear we could perhaps taxon merge it with an insignificant genus and then delete 'Unkown' from the synonym list... maybe that would work?
I thought of that, but a merge just deactivates the taxon (like it already is), not deleting it. The only thing it would do is screw up all 200 observations that currently have an ID to 'unkown' by creating an active actually disagreeing ID instead of an inactive nonsense ID.
You are right.
do you know if completely deleting a taxa is technically possible?
It is, but it's really not something we do much. I'll note that @loarie is the staff member who oversees taxonomy, it's a bit out of my wheelhouse.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1248148-Unkown is inactive. Can someone concisely explain with an example or steps to replicate what, if any issues, this inactive taxon is causing?
@loarie Sure, I just added my own brand new observation to genus unkown:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/168739206
Steps:
1.) Go in web uploader, upload some picture, and enter 'unkown' as a placeholder ID
2.) Submit
3.) placeholder gets resolved as genus unkown
awesome thanks, I made a bug ticket https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/issues/3786
@dryocopus got in touch with me to ask for some clarification on what has happened here. It seems clear that the creation of this taxon was an accident. I think it would be helpful to completely delete it.
Thank you for the detailed explanation and action.
Inactive taxa should no longer be substituted for placeholders now.
The bug still exists new observations came in today with this taxa @tiwane
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/173782427
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/173782428
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?verifiable=true&taxon_id=1248148&locale=en
Thanks, I reopened the github issue.
Genus Unknown. Inactive taxon