Define rules for scientific name identity

[mdoering]

Define clear rules what exactly makes a name the same name. A scientific name in the sense of the Clearinghouse of CoL+ has an identity and a unique, stable identifier. If possible these identifiers should be reusing ids issued by the participating nomenclators like IPNI.

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A name includes it’s authorship. Two homonyms with different authors therefore represent two different name entities.

The same name can usually be represented by many different strings which we refer to as lexical variations. For each name a standard representation, the canonical form, exists. Lexical variations exist for various reasons. Author spelling, transliterations, epithet gender, additional infrageneric or infraspecific indications or cited species authors in infraspecific names are common reasons. Listed here are 7 distinct names with some of their string representations:

 1. Aus bus Linnaeus 1758
    - Aus bus Linn. 1758
    - Aus bus Linn 1758
    - Aus bus L.
    - Aus ba Linn 1758.
    - Aus (Hus) bus L.

 2. Xus bus (Linn, 1758)
    - Xus bus (Linn) Smith

 3. Xus cus Smith, 1850
    - Xus cus Sm.

 4. Xus cus Jones 1900

 5. Xus bus cus Smith 1850
    - Xus bus subsp. cus Smith 1850

 6. Xus dus Pyle 2000

 7. Foo bar var. lion Smith 1850
    - Foo bar L. var. lion Smith
    - Foo bar subsp. dar var. lion Smith 1850
    - Foo bar Lin. subsp. dar Mill. var. lion Smith 1850

New names (sp./gen. nov.), new recombinations of the same epithet (comb. nov.), a name at a new rank (stat. nov.) or replacement names (nom. nov.) are all treated as distinct names.

Open questions to be addressed:

• How to treat various spelling variations. Should (some) misspellings, different transliterations, ligatures, umlauts or a wrong gender ending be considered a different name or just a lexical variant?
• Is the (intended) publication of a name a requirement?
• What about chresonyms?
• Is an ambiregnal name published both under the botanical and zoological code a single or two names?

We need to capture examples of the various cases.