Hi Keith

I have had a quick look into this in the current copy of the database. The issue predates my arrival so I am not sure what would have motivated any changes but you are correct that there is no TVK NHMSYS0000504358 and the current recommended TVK is NBNSYS0100005605. Furthermore, the remaining TVK, although marked as ill-formed, does look to me well-formed to me ... could you confirm that? PESI certainly lists the name identically in their database. Very odd. It is unusual to have an ill-formed name as the recommended name.

As a general rule, you are also correct that TVKs are immutable - like TLIKs - once created and used they will not be deleted. However, it is physically possible for an administrator to delete a TVK if he felt that it hadn't been used in the wider world ... i.e. there was no possibility for it to have had records or mapping associated with it. My reading (just based on what I can see and with no knowledge of the history) would be that, if both names existed at one time and were identical, the older one was marked as ill-formed to favour your newer name ... but later the newer name was removed because it was thought to be a duplicate that hadn't been used but the administrator didn't then mark the remaining one as well-formed. Bit of a mess, I agree, but I will look into it further and see if I can track down the cause.

Best wishes,
Chris R.

Hi Keith

I have chatted with Charles and he has discovered a breadcrumb trail in the change_logs that I had forgotten about. It basically confirms what we suspected.

You are correct, the authority on the old TVK was modified (something that we wouldn't usually do these days) but the entry in the NameServer wasn't changed to 'well-formed'. Before the modification it seems another entry had been created manually and after the authority of the original one was changed it created a duplication. Later this duplication was spotted and the newer TVK was archived. I'm pleased to say that nowadays this wouldn't happen because we have routines to spot duplicates and we would have just left the old, ill-formed name and repointed it to the new, well-formed one.

The correct name is, as it is now, "Stigmella lemniscella (Zeller, 1839)" - TVK NBNSYS0100005605 - and it will be marked as well-formed when I get round to changing the NameServer. TVK NHMSYS0000504358 was archived for reference purposes only and the TVK will never be reused - we don't reuse any keys.

I hope that clears up the confusion. The NBN Gateway seem to have translated your records correctly and when the NameServer has been corrected it will read 'well-formed'. :)

ChrisR.