changes to splits

[Ken-ichi]

Hello all,

We just made two significant changes to the way committing a taxon
split updates associated identifications:

1) Identifications will now be added automatically based on atlases

Atlases are themselves pretty new, but they're basically just
place-based ranges (see http://www.inaturalist.org/pages/atlases).
Now, if all the output taxa of a split are atlased and an observation
lies within the atlas range of just one of the output taxa, we will
automatically add a new ID of that output taxon like we do with swaps.
Here's an example where this was done:
http://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/18657

2) Identifications of the nearest common ancestor taxon of all output
taxa will be added if there is ambiguity

So if the the species Foo bar is split into Foo baz and Foo rab and
the outputs aren't atlased, identifications of Foo bar will be made
not current and new IDs of Foo will be added. This actually came of a
conversation here in the Google Group last year:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/inaturalist/yV3fdkKamAY/eOzlOeL5AQAJ.
Here's a very small-scale example:
http://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/20333

I've tried to update the Curator's Guide to reflect this and be more
explicit about how records get updated for all kinds of changes:
http://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#changes

We're hoping this makes splits a little less painful. If you haven't
experienced this pain yourself, up until now splits just haven't tried
to update any records, so they end up leaving observations associated
with old concepts until people add new IDs (e.g. the Great and
Terrible Scrub-Jay Split of 2016:
http://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/16541).

However, keep in mind these changes aren't perfect. For one thing,
associating observations with some higher level taxon makes them
harder to find and re-identify if they couldn't be updated
automatically. Also, in some rare cases, new IDs of the common
ancestor taxon are going to count as disagreements with other,
unrelated taxa. Both of these seem like relatively small prices to pay
for avoiding the scrub-jay situation, though.

As always, fire away with feedback. I figured most curators are in the
Google Group, but I can make a blog post too if you think this
warrants a wider announcement.

[James Bailey]

Ah yes, and the Super Sad Split of Sooty Shearwater o.o

PS. this is awesome. Small question -- will you let us minimize the "inactive taxon" IDs? Would help tidy the pages greatly.

[Ken-ichi]

I guess they add a bit of clutter but IMO, they're not that common and
personally I like seeing the full ID history.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "iNaturalist" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to inaturalist...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to inatu...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/inaturalist.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[AfriBats]

Thanks so much for implementing this, which has been bothering me for quite a while. The 2 changes look like elegant solutions!

Would be great if these 2 aspects concerning taxon changes could be tackled as well:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/inaturalist/uN3LEnFN_es/fDqsT9O5AgAJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/inaturalist/P5qcJpy5CMw/TEC9gsqnAwAJ

If iNat strives to use a common taxonomy, why would users be allowed to opt out of taxon changes?

Best, Jakob

[Ben Phalan]

Great to see these changes, which sound very sensible. Thanks iNat team!

+1 to Jakob's further suggestions.

Ben