automatic upates of taxon swaps

[AfriBats]

Hi everyone

Again a post concerning taxon changes: I understand that users need to have the option to individually adjust their IDs if there's a taxonomic change that is not a 1:1 change. Here is what the account option currently says:

Taxon change settings

Automatically update my content for taxon changes

When taxa are merged or renamed on iNat, your observations, listed taxa, identifications, etc. will be automatically updated to the new taxa if the change is unambiguous. If you opt out or the change is ambiguous (e.g. a split), you will receive an update about the change linking to a tool you can use to manually update your content if you choose.

However, I don't see any reason why users should be given the option to opt out of taxon changes that are unambiguous: if iNat's backbone taxonomy changes, then the IDs of ALL associated observations should update accordingly. We're only accumulating IDs of inactive taxa with this option....

Jakob

[Ken-ichi Ueda]

I think that's a legit use case. I hate name changes, and if I had infinite time, I would opt out of all automatic changes so I could manually review each one and fully understand why the change happened and attempt to memorize the new name. Otherwise, the next time you use that name you get a confusing and unpleasant surprise when you enter "Leptogium corniculatum" and iNat tells you it matched "Scytinium palmatum" (see http://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/19889). This is even more relevant now that we are automatically updating records for splits. Sadly, I don't have that kind of time, so it's more convenient for me to accept automated changes, but I understand and support the desire to be more hands-on.

-ken-ichi

[AfriBats]

Hi Ken-ichi

I still don't see why users should have the choice to opt out of taxon changes. If a largely unified taxonomy is something that iNat tries to achieve (by following external taxonomies where these exist), and thereby facilitating data exchange with GBIF, EOL and others, then I think allowing users to opt out of taxon changes is leading to nothing but ambiguity. If I take your argument further, then every iNat user should be allowed to use whichever taxonomic treatment he/she prefers, and that doesn't seem to be current iNat policy for good reason.

Apart from that, I'm concerned what will happen to IDs affected by taxon changes over the years and decades to come - there will be an increasing number of inactive users, either because they've left iNat, or because they are decomposing. If the system is left as it is, observations owned by users who have opted out and affected by taxonomic splits will be accumulating nonsense.

I'm all for informing users of taxonomic changes that have been made, and how their observations are affected by that! I just don't see a good reason for the 'opt out' choice.

Jakob