How do I associate a preferred name with a thing and have it stick? For instance, I would like to enter "Yellow  Warbler" in view/list setup, but I can't - I have to enter ```american Yellow Warbler. And that is exactly what I get. I have troubles too with Warbling Vireo and Yellow-rumped Warbler. I imported some more data, and and since then I have had a lot of ambiguous names.

Thanks for any help!

Alan

Hello Alan,

When entering a name into any Name field in BD a check is done to see if that name can refer to more than one thing in your database. For example, Yellow Warbler may reference one thing in the ABA tax list, another in the Clements tax list, and so on. If that name does reference more than one thing, then you are prompted to select which thing you really want.

Each thing in BD can have many common names. Some just have one, but many have more than one. And sometimes, because of different taxonomic lists and old colloquial names (e.g. Junco, snowbird, etc) they will conflict with each other.

Once you get the "Select Thing from Ambiguous Entry" window, you can use that to determine which thing you are really after. By clicking on each thing entry in the upper grid, you can see which tax lists reference that thing and how they classify it. You can quickly see that "American Yellow Warbler" is the thing you are after if you are after the one that occurs in North America. And that it is classified as D. petechia by the ABA tax list without subspecies, but is considered the subspecies D. petechia aestiva by the tax lists with subspecies. By entering a sighting for this thing, it will show up on all tax lists appropriately based on how they classify it.

Now - to your question, you seem to have found the 3 troublesome things in BD! congrats! As with everything in BD, you can remove these overlaps in ambiguous names, but I don't recommend it. Instead, I recommend entering "den;pet;aes" (This is a SmartSearch field and if you are unsure what that syntax is that I just entered, press Alt+F1 while your cursor is in the Name field for help); this will only and always pull up the American Yellow Warbler that you are after. That is shorthand for the scientific name Dendroica petechia aestiva. Each Name field will take the scientific name, common name or any alias name automatically and auto-match on whatever you enter.

let me know if you have further questions on this

Jeff

 I fear I am not truly getting my head round the thing thing. I imported some more records (for a checklist) and now have even more things assigned to a subspecies. I must be making wrong choices in the import.

That aside, when I record a sighting of a Black Scoter, Melanitta niger, that is exactly what I want. I do not want American Black Scoter (niger), Melanitta niger niger. And a Yellow Warbler should be just that, Dendroica petechia, not American Yellow Warbler (aestiva) Dendroica petechia aestiva. This is more difficult to select for viewing. looks undesirable, and pretends to a knowledge of subspecies I don't possess. Some of my records do, in fact show as Black Scoter and a Yellow Warbler. Indeed, this is how it used to be, before I started importing records. (What happened was that when you made the import files from my Avisys records I had neglected to tell you that my date format was dd/mm/yyy. As a result my dates were correct when the first number was more than twelve, and day/month reversed when less. This was so hard to sort, I ditched the lot, exported everything from Avisys, massaged the data into BD format, corrected the dates, and imported the lot again. During import I got a lot of grief about Yellow warblers and such. I am sure at that point I mishandled the dialogs to choose between different things.)

Can I get back to the old way? I can even re-import if necessary. Thanks for reading my rant.

Alan

Hi Alan,

It is a difficult concept and the best way we have figured over the years to resolve mapping differences between taxonomic lists and authorities.

Let's start with your example. Bear in mind, that you have only purchased and therefore are only using the Clements taxonomic list. That taxonomic list contains subspecies; all of them.

When you attempt to record a sighting for a Black Scoter (using the Clements list) that name can refer to M. nigra and M. nigra americana. So you are presented with the Select Thing from Ambiguous Entry window shown below. By clicking on the thing "Common Scoter" in the top of the 3 grids, you can see that it is referenced (in the middle grid) by Clements 6.3.2 and classified as M. nigra. If you clck on the thing "American Black Scoter" you will see that Clements 6.3.2 classifies this as the subspecies M. nigra americana. This is the American subspecies of Black Scoter (according to Clements) that occurs in NA. Recording a sighting of either will be appropriate for any Black Scoter sighted in NA. Since you have the tax list with subspecies, and you know which subspecies you saw, it is usually best going forward to record it as such. But either will work correctly as far as life counts, reports, etc. Note: be sure to check and use the subspecies checkboxes on many screens that don't check them by default (e.g. Edit/View, Reports, Checklist Entry, etc).

You can get back to the old way. The window is the same when you are importing records. You can delete all your current records and re-import. Now that you understand the "ambiguous" window, you can more correctly select the right thing for what you want to do. Always select the species if that is what you want.

Let's start here and let me know what questions you have after reading this. No problem on the rant. I am here to help.

Jeff