Taxacom: A compromise solution (was Re: Single official lists of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega many proposals to this list))

[David Redei]

" You seem to have missed the whole point, you would no longer need to
worry whether a genus and a species name is masculine, feminine or
neuter EVER again, they would become names that never change."

Adam, with all my respect, I think it is you who is missing the whole point.

You can like or dislike, but Latin adjectives do have various endings. You
cannot say "you would no longer need to worry whether a genus and species
name is masculine, feminine, or neuter EVER again", because still tens of
thousands of species names with changeable endings (like germanicus,
germanica and germanicum)  will continue to exist in the literature, and
you will still need to determine whether the usage of a particular name is
CORRECT or INCORRECT.

If I currently see "Bombus germanica" in a paper by Jones (2023), I will
know this is wrong. At most I need to check the original description to see
whether it is indeed a Latin adjective, but in many cases even this will be
unnecessary. In my next publication I can use the name "Bombus germanicus",
and I will make a remark that "the usage of Smith (2023) as Bombus
germanica is wrong". *The correctness or incorrectness of a given usage can
currently be established based on a simple rule.*

After your proposed new practice will be in effect, if I see "Bombus
germanica" in a paper by Jones (2023), I will indeed not need to care
whether Bombus is masculine, feminine or neuter, but I still will *need *to
determine whether this usage is correct or not! And the ONLY way for this
will be to make a major literature search, browse through dozens if not
hundreds articles and check how the various authors used the epithet over
the past centuries. *The correctness or incorrectness of a usage will only
be possible to be established based on a literature search.*

I hardly think that it would be an improvement. For me it is a significant
step backwards.

David Redei