[Cz-biology] How to settle the naming issue

[John Moffett]

Hi Larry,

I called for a vote of biology editors the other day, but did not get much
of a response.

My suggestion was to basically leave it to the writers to decide if there
was an unambiguous common name which would be recognizable to all, such as
"Giant panda", or "Raccoon". Where common names are ambiguous or
non-existent, then the author would either pick a common name they felt was
most appropriate, or use the scientific name as they see fit.

I just don't see an article on the tomato plant being more accurate if the
page is titled "Lycopersicon Esculentum", does anyone? I doubt it.

John M.



-----Original Message-----
From: cz-biology-bounces at voltaire.citizendium.org
[mailto:cz-biology-bounces at voltaire.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of Larry
Sanger
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 9:27 AM
To: 'Biology Workgroup List'
Cc: 'Kim van der Linde'
Subject: [Cz-biology] How to settle the naming issue

All,

Here is something I posted, speaking as Editor-in-Chief, on the "Giant
Panda" talk page:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Giant_Panda_%28Ailuropoda_melanoleuca%29
#Article_title 

I want to stipulate, for future reference, that this sort of thing is a
decision to be made by the Biology Workgroup.  It is not really appropriate
to try to use particular CZ talk pages to settle general policy questions.

Consequently, it has *not* been settled that the English name will go before
the Latin name, and it most certainly is not up to a non-biologist to make
the determination what has or has not been settled.  Kim would be well
within her rights, as biology editor, to move the article back to its
previous name.  To settle the question, a biology editor should take a poll
of other active biology editors on a precise question, present me with the
result, and I will announce the result.

Does that sound reasonable as a stopgap decision method?

--Larry

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