Naming policy

[Jason "Electrawn" Potkanski]

Question: What is the US Government Classification/UN Database/Recognized Overseeing Authority deal with these issues?

-jtp

[Gilles Tran]

Question: What is the US Government Classification/UN Database/Recognized Overseeing Authority deal with these issues?

-jtp

As far as I know, there's no such thing. Nomenclatures are always meant for a specific usage, they don't have a natural, God-given right to exist. I've been working lately with several competing taxonomies collected by independent bodies: sometimes they match, sometimes they don't, at least in my field of work.

I've been involved some years ago in a EU project where part of my job was to draw a nomenclature system for biological entities (in this case feed materials), so I studied different sorts of nomenclatures:  biology books, customs nomenclatures, official lists, trade nomenclatures etc.

To put it simply, there's no obvious solution. Every strict system will end up being more constraining and awkward than helpful. It bears repeating, but many plants don't fall neatly in a single taxonomic category from an encyclopedic point of view (that would be different if we were working exclusively for biologists, but that's not the case). Wheat, cotton, barley, oats, rapeseed etc. are single or multiple encyclopedic entities that cover different species, sometimes with disputed, extremely complex taxonomies that only geneticians can make sense of. Cultivated cotton corresponds to 4 different species. Wheat is many species, plus hybrids, sometimes with wild species from other genera! (the WP article about wheat taxonomy is a good introduction). Triticale is an rye x wheat hybrid etc. Rye-grass is different species, plus hybrids. Millet cover several genera, also with disputed taxonomies.

In my own database, I've been trying to find a balance between common sense (from an user's point of view) and a minimum of scientific accuracy (tailored for a targeted professional public so it's not going into much taxonomic detail).

• Usually, the common name is the right thing because it's well-established and relatively unambiguous: wheat is wheat, rye is rye, triticale is triticale, and Guinea grass is usually Guinea grass. In the latter case, for instance, I'd favour the common name vs the scientific one because the current scientific name is recent and not quite known. Maize, or course, can be maize or corn, but that can be taken care of with a disambiguation page. Note that there are cases where subspecies or even cultivars could be given separate pages.
• Sometimes, the scientific name is better because the common names are messy, or virtually unknown, or inexistant. Many species with no established common names (which usually mean that they do not correspond to entities well identified by the general public) but of specific biological interest (like for instance Turritopsis nutricula).
• Sometimes, a combination of both names should be preferred because the common name is well-established but too lax and the scientific name too obscure or disputed: that would be the case for the various millet genera for instance, or for many legume seeds that are all called X or Y bean/gram, the common name being pretty much useless.

In a nutshell, the nomenclature should be user-driven, derived from the way the targeted public expects to find things. That's surely not an easy task, but trying to impose a nomenclature to people isn't, in my experience, a good thing.

[Nereo Preto]

Question: What is the US Government Classification/UN Database/Recognized Overseeing Authority deal with these issues?

-jtp

There is indeed kind of an authority about binomial nomenclature.
Binomial names of animals or animal-like species are regulated by the International code of Zoological nomenclature (see it at http://www.iczn.org/); for plants and plant-like (e.g., fungi) organisms, there is of course the international code of botanical nomenclature.

While scientists often do not agree about the taxonomy of a particular organism (but such debates are very seldom affecting to average readers), there is as far as I know a general consensus on how and why the rules of those codes are to be applied.

Some communities (e.g., researchers on fungi) even agreed upon the rule that a new species cannot be accepted until it is registered in an international web database (http://www.mycobank.org/, if I remember well).

This is to say that binomial nomenclature works, and has some kind of "official" status.

As for titles of CZ articles, I am with biologists and support the use of scientific names. Yes, in some cases (e.g., wheat) the use of the scientific name seem absurd, but such cases are rare (and such exceptions are to be accepted - as particular cases and not as a rule).

Readers or CZ will be:
1) English
2) People from other English-speaking countries
3) English-speaking people from non English-speaking countries
categories 2 and 3 will probably make the bulk of the users.

Common names for (1) will often not be in use for (2) and (3). For example, (3) people like me don't know that the "Dead Cap" is "Amanita phalloides" (a deadly mushroom) - I also have no idea if other mushrooms have the same common name. And I'm not sure if Australians call that mushroom with its UK-USA common name (or, if they do so, is it the same species, WITH EXACTLY THE SAME DEADLY EFFECTS?). Ambiguity in cases as this may be, well, unpleasant.

[Nereo Preto]

Ah, by the way: all my mushroom-hunter friends know what "Amanita phalloides" is, regardless of their level of scientific culture. But I admit this is a very particular case: there is not a common name for that mushroom in Italy, but this is a mushroom that any LIVING mushroom-hunter knows... 

[Gilles Tran]

There is indeed kind of an authority about binomial nomenclature.
Binomial names of animals or animal-like species are regulated by the International code of Zoological nomenclature (see it at http://www.iczn.org/); for plants and plant-like (e.g., fungi) organisms, there is of course the international code of botanical nomenclature.

Then, why, when I am trying to find the proper name for a plant species, the ICBN seems totally useless and I'm stuck with a bunch of competing and often contradicting databases? As far as I have understood them, these organisms regulate the way species are named (the rules of the game), but do they publish lists of authoritative scientific names? As you point out, this effort, when it exists, seems to be made by individual organisations. Sorting out synonyms is apparently a difficult job. You mention the case of mushrooms, but there are organisations that work on other groups (like legume plants). Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that they're exhaustive and their work can still be contradicted by other authorities. And it's not that they cover all the ground (I'm still looking for something authoritative about the Poaceae that doesn't stop at the genus level)...

As for titles of CZ articles, I am with biologists and support the use of scientific names. Yes, in some cases (e.g., wheat) the use of the scientific name seem absurd, but such cases are rare (and such exceptions are to be accepted - as particular cases and not as a rule).

Still, these cases are likely to cover all species that are of particular interest for people (cultivated plants, domestic/popular animals etc.), and there will be a lot to say about them. They are indeed rare in terms of numbers compared to the billlions of species that people didn't bother to name in English/Swahili etc., but they're a main target for an encyclopedia. For some reason, I tend to believe that there will be more users to browse the "cat" page than there will be for Lobophasma redelinghuysensis.

The case of Amanita phalloides is a good example why the system should be kept flexible, since the scientific name is indeed needed, in this particular case. Note that in French the common name is Amanite phalloïde (but then there are lots of mushroom species with regional names so the scientific name would be mandatory anyway).

[Chris Day]

As for titles of CZ articles, I am with biologists and support the use of scientific names. Yes, in some cases (e.g., wheat) the use of the scientific name seem absurd, but such cases are rare (and such exceptions are to be accepted - as particular cases and not as a rule).

For some reason, I tend to believe that there will be more users to browse the "cat" page than there will be for Lobophasma redelinghuysensis.

Let's make sure we are all on the same page here. I think those of use who would prefer the scientific naming conventions to be standard agree that there will be exceptions. Nereo does mention this above too.

I wonder if a good approach would be to create articles automatically from a database such as Species2000 as a starting point (they currently have  884,552 catlogue from mulitple databases).  A simple script could easily handle the transfer of data into tree of life stubs. I suspect that Larry might not be too keen on this idea. I think i saw him mention that auto dowloading of data was to be discouraged (This is a distant memory so i can't be sure.)

If this did occur, we would need a tree of life work group. When you do something like this you need to do it right. Then, if people think the common name is critical for the typical reader to get more out of the CZ article, those pages could be moved to the common name. Such a move should be considered the exception but if it does occur we have the advantage that there is an automatic redirect from the scientific name.  If any move is regarded as controversial then it should probably not be happening.

I might add that similar auto stub creation might be a possible for most proteins too, any thoughts?

[Nancy Sculerati]

I vote yes-let's make the workgroup as part of biology. Chris can you organize it? Let's get a prototype model of the titles going. By and large, there is a binomial classification that works. We can deal with the exceptional cases as we come across them.

[Jaap Winius]

... I wonder if a good approach would be to create articles automatically from a database such as Species2000 as a starting point (they currently have  884,552 catlogue from mulitple databases).  ...

I'm not a big fan of this idea. For snakes at least, Species 2000 is based on data from the EMBL Reptile database (currently off-line). When I started writing the viper articles last year at Wikipedia, I began by using the EMBL for my taxonomy, which seems to be pretty popular. It's also used by the Animal Diversity Web, for example. However, it didn't take long before I started to notice certain inconsistencies. After a number of email discussions with Dr. Peter Uetz (they guy who's owns the EMBL project), I discovered to my dismay that many of the common names are simply made up (to be found nowhere else), that the geographical data is often interpollated and thus not accurate, and worst of all, that the taxonomy is sometimes pretty arbitrary! Finally, Dr. Uetz is a geneticist, not a herpetologist, and seems to gets much of his herpetological support from Dr. Wolfgang Wüster of the University of Bangor, Wales (mentioned as the consulting expert). As a result, it often seems to me that Wüster's personal opinions, as well as those of his associates, seem to get preferential treatment at the EMBL -- hardly an example of consensus if you ask me.

Not long after that, I discovered another taxonomic source: ITIS. It may be more spartan than the EMBL (when the EMBL was on-line), but it's a much bigger database and is certainly more authoritative; just check out the contributing sources. For info on snakes, their source is McDiarmid, Campbell and Touré's 1999 Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1 (in which Wüster is only one of 21 reviewers), plus McDiarmid's ongoing work. Later on, I was informed by two different herpetologists that McDiarmid et al. 1999 is the best available sources for snake taxonomy. So, that's what I've been using.

What I'm trying to say is that, in my opinion, it would not be wise to select a single, huge database, such as Species2000, and use that for our taxonomy for everything. Who's to say they're always the best choice? Better to let the authors of the various taxonomic groups decide for themselves which taxonomy is currently best suited for them. Besides, it's much easier to create articles than it is to actually write them.

[Nancy Sculerati]

Jaap, couldn't the specific issues be addressed in the workgroup? How else can we proceed?

[Nancy Sculerati]

I was asked by Larry Sanger about changing the title of Cat to domestic cat- I answered him on the talk page http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Cat, and suggested (on his talk page): (1) There is an entire discussion on forums under naming conventions for biology, I'd like to nominate Chris Day and Jaap Winnius to be in a workgroup to actually make a "white paper" of how we should name plants and animals, that white paper could then be submitted to the Biology workgroup who could come up with our conventions. Meanwhile, perhaps you could move Cat to the title I have suggested in response to your query.

He answered http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User_talk:Larry_Sanger:

Hi Nancy,
As to (1), sounds great.

Are you guys willing to work out a proposal? I'm sure you could ask anybody you'd like to help you, and that proposal could then be reviewed by the Biology Workgroup. I really can't think of another practical way to actually get a naming convention accomplished, and so - since you both are committed and interested, I am hoping you say yes. I'll help, if you want, but as you've probably already realized, taxonomy is not my area of expertise. Though I think I might be able to help in coming up with a user-friendly set of guidelines for titles and common names. Anyway- what do you say?

[Jaap Winius]

... I'd like to nominate Chris Day and Jaap Winnius to be in a workgroup to actually make a "white paper" of how we should name plants and animals, that white paper could then be submitted to the Biology workgroup who could come up with our conventions. ...

I am willing to try my hand at writing this white paper and would welcome Chris' participation. However, am doubtful as to whether we can accomplish anything with this tactic.

[Nancy Sculerati]

Only one way to find out!  Thanks for accepting the challenge. Chris Day has also accepted and will lead the effort with your help. I am at your service if I can be.

[Chris Day]

However, am doubtful as to whether we can accomplish anything with this tactic.

Jaap, i think we can take the rational approach and learn from the experience of others.  I have been browsing the Wikispecies spin off from wikipedia where they are trying to take a more systematic approach. Are you involved in that project at all?

I see no reason why we cannot put together a proposal that suits the scientific needs and accomodates the populist needs. However, i have not delved into this enough to see how problematic it will be to incorporate common name for a limited number of species. Surely there is a way around this?

[Steven Albee-Scott]

As many of you are aware, people have spent their lives developing strategies for naming organisms. I would recommend looking at the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature as described in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Code_of_Botanical_Nomenclature

And the original (albeit dated) code:

http://www.bgbm.org/iapt/nomenclature/code/SaintLouis/0000St.Luistitle.htm

The reason scientists use scientific naming conventions is so that all present know that they are talking about the same organisms. I rather like the idea as presented using a common name followed by the binomial but I foresee problems there as well.

For all you mushroom lovers

King Bolete (Boletus edulis)

Chanterelles (Cantherellus cibarius)…and,

Cantharellus acicularis Velen. (1939); Cantharellaceae
Cantharellus aequinoctialis Link; Cantharellaceae
Cantharellus albidus Fr. (1821), (= Gerronema albidum), [RSD]; Marasmiaceae
Cantharellus albomarginatus (Coker) Corner (1966); Cantharellaceae
Cantharellus alboroseus Heinem. (1958), [RSD]; Cantharellaceae
Plus the 483 other references to different kinds of Chanterelles

Or perhaps Morels (Morchella elata)…and,

Morchella abietina Leuba; Morchellaceae
Morchella acuminata J. Kickx f.; Morchellaceae
Morchella acuta Velen.; Morchellaceae
Morchella agaricoides DC.; Morchellaceae
Morchella alba Leuba; Morchellaceae
Plus the other 201 other genus species and variants.

My point being that common names can lead you down a very dangerous and convoluted road, but check out what the people in the field of mycology have done.

http://www.indexfungorum.org/

http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp

I do like the idea of using common and scientific names in unison, and the above problem may be a delusion generated by many sleepless nights trying to parse the botanical code.

Steve

[Daniel Mietchen]

Just a brief hint that the debate has regained momentum recently at Jaap Winius' user page.