Taxacom: Order Anura - correct authorship?

[Tony Rees]

Yes Stephen, one could do that, with a certain amount of re-engineering
(not under my control any more in this case)... however 99%+ of the time
the "name+author+year" system does work (which is why it has been adopted
as the de facto standard in virtually all taxonomic data systems as well as
the taxonomic literature) - e.g. in the example given above, the crustacean
order is Decapoda Latreille, 1802 while the cephalopod order is Decapoda
Leach, 1818 (now Teuthoidea - or possibly Teuthida - Naef, 1916 (Teuthida
is accepted in ITIS at this time but not in WoRMS, more on that would be a
separate thread...)

Go e.g. to ION/Zoological Record and you will find "name+author+year" as de
facto taxon identifiers, same in Neave, same in Global Names Index, same in
ITIS, same in GBIF, etc. etc. At least some attempt at standardization in
these matters is clearly helpful :) There are a few instances where such a
construct is not unique, where indeed some workarounds are required - e.g.
in my case I tend to use name|| ||authority, name|| ||authority|| [2] and
so on, others may have their own preference...

Regards - Tony


On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 at 15:31, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:

> One could disambiguate homonyms in other ways, e.g. Decapoda (Crustacea)
> vs. Decapoda (Cephalopoda). What you actually need is a separate
> disambiguation field associated with each name in your database. Sometimes,
> you can disambiguate by author, sometimes by parent taxon or anything else
> that does the job.
> Stephen
>
> On Thursday, 23 February 2023 at 04:34:57 pm NZDT, Tony Rees <
> tonyrees49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Stephen, once again I agree with you to a point, but then differ: for
> example, it is a fact that Blackburn & Wake, 2011 cite the order as Anura
> Fischer von Waldheim, 1813. So one could give (on WikiXXX if desired) a
> particular authorship "according to [wherever]"; and note any alternative
> views as published. Just my take of course. Sometimes it becomes important,
> for example according to my recollection there are 2 different orders
> Decapoda, one a Crustacean group in current use, the other something else
> (cephalopods? cannot remember), so once again authorship of the name in
> question is a desirable feature.
>
> Regards - Tony
>
>
> On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 at 12:52, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> wrote:
>
> The problem with putting your preferred authorship on names like Anura on
> Wikimedia is that your preferred authorship is just that and not an
> objective fact because there is no such thing as authorship for such names.
> It is a common misconception, but a misconception nonetheless. There are no
> codified rules to define the authorship of such names. Nothing to say that
> the authorship is the first author. Nothing to say that the work in which
> the name was published must be published according to the Code, etc., etc.
> It is all just pointless dust in the wind.
> Stephen
>
>
>
>