Richard, Thanks for the response! All makes sense. I'll work on making sure my users are aware of these issues and give them options according to their use case.
--- Markus, Thanks, I'll follow those issues. > please let us know about those duplicate names. Where? in JIRA, or a github repo issues? Best, Scott On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 2:13 AM Markus D?ring <mdoering at gbif.org> wrote: > Hi Scott, > > these are indeed unwanted duplications of species in our backbone. The > software that builds the backbone so far does not yet try to synonymize > these spelling variations automatically as it is quite easy to get that > wrong. We will work on this in an improved version of the algorithm, the > open issue is here: > http://dev.gbif.org/issues/browse/POR-2812 > > ? which is part of the next round of improving the backbone building: > http://dev.gbif.org/issues/browse/POR-3029 > > > Until then please let us know about those duplicate names. It helps > understanding the problem better and as a last resort we could add those > names to our patch list as known spelling variations, i.e. synonyms. They > then get synonymized in future backbone versions: > https://github.com/gbif/backbone-patch > > > Many thanks, > Markus > > > > On 11 May 2016, at 23:22, Scott Chamberlain <myrmecocystus at gmail.com> > wrote: > > HI all, > > Not sure where is best to ask this... so here goes. Let me know if there's > a better place. > > The following are examples some users have highlighted for me as leading > to confusion when searching for taxa. > > 1. Macrozamia platyrachis (http://www.gbif.org/species/4928834) vs. > Macrozamia platyrhachis (http://www.gbif.org/species/2683551) > > Here, the two spellings (with/without h) are accepted, and exact matches. > The sci. authority seems to differ with F. M. Bailey vs. F.M.Bailey. The > first is from GRIN taxonomy and the second from COL. > > Anyway, for users e.g., of the R client, this is a bit confusing. I had > thought the backbone taxonomy would only have one master taxon key and name > for each real taxon, but here it seems like there's two? > > 2. Cycas circinalis (http://www.gbif.org/species/2683264 ) vs. Cycas > circinnalis (http://www.gbif.org/species/3594916 ) > > Here, the two spellings (with 1 or 2 "n"'s) are accepted, and exact > matches. The sci. authorities here are exactly the same. The first is > from COL and the second from IPNI taxonomy. > > 3. Isolona perrieri (http://www.gbif.org/species/3648546 ) vs Isolona > perrierii (http://www.gbif.org/species/6308376 ) > > Here, the two spellings (with 1 or 2 "i"'s) are accepted, and exact > matches. The sci. authorities here are exactly the same. The first is > from TPL and the second from COL > > -------- > > Should I advise users to when searching on the backbone taxonomy to limit > to COL to avoid any confusion about names? > > Best, > Scott Chamberlain > > _______________________________________________ > API-users mailing list > API-users at lists.gbif.org > http://lists.gbif.org/mailman/listinfo/api-users > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.gbif.org/pipermail/api-users/attachments/20160512/8a60e7ad/attachment.html>
