scientific names, canonical names, species names ...

[cboettig]

Currently, most table represent species names as canonical/scientific names Genus species, e.g. Homo sapiens rather than just sapiens. Does this make sense? What about epithets?

I've tried to standardize this across the datasets (e.g. for the species column of the hierarchy tables. GBIF drops the rank 'species' all together in preference for specificEpithet.

The same question arises in the taxonid tables: e.g. at species rank (which some but not all taxonid tables are restricted to anyway), should we use Genus species or Genus species epithet? Or something else? what about authorities that define multiple epithets?

[cboettig]

Much better to follow DWC terminology for consistency here. DWC doesn't have a species term, uses specificEpithet for the "species" name (e.g. "sapiens") and intraspecificEpithet for an epithet. Uses the term scientificName to refer to any latin name at any rank (synonym or accepted name): https://dwc.tdwg.org/terms/#scientificName

The full scientific name, with authorship and date information if known. When forming part of an Identification, this should be the name in lowest level taxonomic rank that can be determined. This term should not contain identification qualifications, which should instead be supplied in the IdentificationQualifier term.

Unfortunately, this incredibly loose definition makes direct name resolution very difficult, particularly if authorship and date information are included, as the standard says nothing about how author and date should be formatted (and this varies widely, even within given data providers). Switching the DWC-based terms, I'm now using scientificName in place name term to refer to the provided name from the taxonomy, usually without authorship information. genus, specificEpithet and when provided, intraspecificEpithet are also available. See #25