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Topic: Taxonomic anarchy

This is a continuation of a thread started in March this year on NBN Atlas Scotland which I have now moved because there appears to be no progress at all on sorting out the confusing and misleading search results.

My latest example is as follows, how can you expect the general public to use the Atlas when presented with the following!

If you search for Cladonia chlorophaea the following appears:
Cladonia chlorophaea (Florke ex Sommerf.) Spreng. (accepted name Cladonia chlorophaea)
Cladonia chlorophaea (accepted name Cladonia chlorophaea)
Cladonia chlorophaea (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Spreng. Occurences 31
Cladonia chlorophaea (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Spreng. Occurences 86
Cladonia chlorophaea agg. (accepted name Cladonia) (this gives 50,111 records of all Cladonia species)
Cladonia chlorophaea Occurences 2008
Cladonia chlorophaea Occurences 685

If you search for Cladonia chlorophaea agg the following appears:
Cladonia chlorophaea agg. (accepted name Cladonia) (this gives 50,111 records of all Cladonia species)
Cladonia chlorophaea (Florke ex Sommerf.) Spreng. (accepted name Cladonia chlorophaea)
Cladonia chlorophaea (accepted name Cladonia chlorophaea)
Cladonia chlorophaea (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Spreng.Occurences 12
Cladonia chlorophaea (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Spreng. Occurences 31
Cladonia chlorophaea (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Spreng. Occurences 86

Surely, I'm not the only one get hot under the collar about the lack of progress on this issue?

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

I'm gutted as well. I came back to record centre life in June this year after a 9 month stint working for the Co-op. Previously I used the Gateway on a regular basis because of how useful the species search, hierarchy and synonyms were and how easy they were to digest and navigate. I just can't get on with the new version. Perhaps I will feel differently after more exposure.

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Dear Chris and Paul,
I'm sorry to hear your frustrations.
The issue has been fed back to the development team and I will update you with their response as soon as I can.

Paul,
As you work your way around the NBN Atlas, you may find the Help information is of use: https://nbnatlas.org/help/step-by-step-help-guides/

Kind regards,
Mandy

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Thank you Mandy,
Getting the search function to work correctly has to be a priority, it is where most people start to access the records data and if it is not accessible to everyone, people won't use the Atlas.

Christine

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Please, if I use the search box on the welcome screen, type in "Bombus terrestris" and select "Bombus terrestris - species", why do I see a list of 318 different taxa? 

Why on earth are "Aplanopsis terrestris Höhnk - Taxon group: fungoid, Muriella terrestris J.B. Petersen, 1932 - Taxon group: alga and Microplana terrestris (Müller OF, 1773) - Taxon group: flatworm (Turbellaria)" etc appearing in the list?  I don't want to see every iteration of "terrestris" in the taxon list, I just want the species "Bombus terrestris.

Please get this search function sorted.  Perhaps you could get you developer to look at how it was implemented in the old Gateway - it worked there.

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Dear Matt,

The search function within the NBN Atlas works by finding the closest match, so just like with Google and other search engines it will return results that match in some way to the search term rather than just an exact match. In the case of "Bombus terrestris" the exact match returns as the top result, it will then show matches for results which aren't as close to the search term, in this case it is matching taxa with the same epithet 'terrestris'.

Just as a reminder, the search boxes on the front page of the NBN Atlas search for all information within the Atlas, not just species,  If you only want species results, we recommend you use the search from the 'species' tab.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Mandy

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Searching for "Bombus terrestris" via the species tab returns the same 318 results as does starting on the welcome screen, typing in "Bombus terrestris" and then selecting  "Bombus terrestris - species" - both options end up on the same page.

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Mandy Henshall wrote:

just like with Google and other search engines it will return results that match in some way to the search term rather than just an exact match

But of course this isn't most people's experience of how Google works. You would have to scroll through a very large number of Google search results pages to find any hit which didn't match the exact search term, if entered correctly. Is there any need to display 'fuzzy logic' results when returning a perfect match for the majority of users?

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Re: Taxonomic anarchy

Hi Christine,
Just to respond to your original comment about the Cladonia chlorophaea search. Apparently the lichen taxonomy in the UK species inventory is being updated. Once the update is complete the NBN will be given the latest version of the UKSI and we will update the Atlas. The updated taxonomy should correct some of these problems.

Once we have the species inventory and have tested the search, I will let you know.

Thanks, Sophie