I'm agreeing with a lot that is being said here. But I think a fair few people know a handful more dinosaur names (maybe not the full binomial admittedly) - Diplodocus, Stegasaurus, Velociraptor, Pteradactyl etc, depending on how recently they watched those documentaries about a dinosaur theme park ...
Point one suggests support for entities which want the power to maintain established names in their own area such as was discussed in the thread on African nomenclature.
So I was procrastinating from walking home and grading quizzes, and went and checked out this page for this to see if there was any updates. Given that most of this thread was people arguing and worrying about common names, people might want to take a gander at this note on common names (which I wonder was maybe inspired by this thread's arguments?). Bolded text was my doing
Working Group Avian Checklists | International Ornithologists' Union
Working Group Avian Checklists Update (January 2024) Progress on the Checklist Work is continuing on the Checklist and it expected that the final draft will be completed by late 2024. There will be a period of cross-checking before it is made public in early 2025. As part of the release the...www.internationalornithology.org
IOU Statement on Vernacular and Common Bird Names
Preamble:
Consistency of name usage is of utmost importance in communication about bird species, ranging from research, conservation and legal contexts all the way to informal and everyday communication. In birds – more so than in any other animal group – the use of common and vernacular names well outweighs that of scientific names because of the large number of amateur ornithologists using them. In an international context and given that English is the lingua franca of science, it is, therefore, important to have a global consensus on English names to avoid misunderstandings in communication. At the same time, regional and local bird names in a variety of languages are to be encouraged to support local citizen science and culture.
English-language names:
English is the language of international communication. English bird names therefore must serve a dual purpose: they must facilitate global communication while – at the same time – satisfying the communication needs of local and regional English-speaking communities. The two purposes are sometimes at loggerheads. Therefore, a sustainable solution will only be achieved if multiple names are permitted. The IOU is committed to supporting regional and national entities which undertake efforts to capture, document, and standardize the English bird names for their respective regions. For instance, the local names of cosmopolitan bird species may well differ among English-speaking communities in North America, South Africa, the British Isles, South and Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. No region or country should be forced to give up names that have been in long-established local or regional usage at the expense of a prescribed global name.
Unique common English names:
For academic communication, for example as part of the global taxonomic list of birds currently in preparation, it is important that there is listed at least one unique common English name for each bird species. Technological advances allow such unique names to be cross-listed with all other English or non-English vernacular names. In many databases, users can specify their preferred local variety of English, allowing the respective regional or national names to be displayed in lieu of the unique common English name. In listing English names, the IOU attempts to capture the diversity of name usages that have existed through ornithological history, but at no point passes judgment on the political, societal, cultural, geographic or ecological appropriateness of such names.
That does not mean that, e.g. the split of Merida Brush-Finch Atlapetes meridae from Moustached; or of Splendid Woodpecker Campephilus splendens from C. guayaquilensis - to name two totally obvious ones - are wrong. Only BirdLife splits those two, for example; the other lists all would have the world as flat on those and many other situations. BirdLife splits a few hundred more species than all the others, and in the preponderance of cases they must be correct. IOC, eBird etc have more interactive and longer-established IT which is more widely used by birders, which does not make them correct, just more popular.
But the Birdlife checklist is important for conservation purposes. The end goal of the list is not simply to please a bunch of us listers, but rather to create a common list that birders, scientists using ebird, and folks accessing conservation status of population can use without conflicts. As is, you probably have three major lists each oriented towards different groups (Clements for Ebird, Birdlife for conservation, and IOC for world birders)
I've been comparing the the different checklists for ABA area birds over the last few weeks...while Clements is the most conservative, I don't think IOC and Birdlife are not more liberal when compared to each other. The latter seems to be biased towards birds with very different appearances, while the former is better at picking up cryptic species. Both lists have species that the other list doesn't recognize.
I think its more the method they use, not specifically that they have an agenda for conservation purposes. There are splits recognized by them of species where the different populations are not remotely endangered.
Referring yours and Jan's I don't think it's either a difference in method or a view among shades of grey creating differences between lists. Maybe for N America or Europe where very few differences exist anyway, and we can argue all day about Crossbills, Larus gulls or Stonechats and not a right lot else. But not for the tropics. Many of the present committees are simply and steadfastly refusing to consider BirdLife or IOC splits on some "point of principle". There is no firm decision "not to split" cases like those mentioned (whilst at the same time applying a consistent method to "split hairs" with much more similar to one another or genetically closer splits, like Herring Gulls or Common/Mew Gulls). There is no consistency, there is no method or grand scheme; it is laziness, the over-whelming nature of tropical faunas or bloody-mindedness / grandstanding (or all of them) behind much of the differences between lists. IOC, Clements and SACC/NACC simply want to ignore what BirdLife have done on principle - and are not even considering their proposals. In some cases, these have support in the periodical literature but because BirdLife was the original messenger, they don't get even considered. Hopefully this new project can involve banging some heads together and sorting some of these things out!
