[Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

[Tony.Rees at csiro.au]

Jim Croft wrote:

<snip>
I am getting quite worried about all this 'sanitization' of authorish
strings as though it has some sort of nomenclatural, taxonomic or
operational validity.  The author and date are not part of the name -
they are attributes of a particular use of the name.
</snip>

Sounds a lot like operational and taxonomic validity to me. In the cases of homonyms at least, we need to distinguish between usages of a name - different authors/years/publications/pages, different usages, often different taxonomic status (nomen nudum or whatever). If we can't link together authority citations that are not identical but which are variant references to the same published name instance, then they all look like different name usages, which is incorrect.

- Tony