- Given a multitude of well established and precise historical name usages, I explicitly don't want to commit to one in particular
that my present usage is congruent with, or not. (Indeed, I kind of think this is what the name withOUT a sec. does, "explicitly").
Yes! Exactly!
I choose to be vague - any past usage is ok with me, here.
During the TCS days, this is what we referred to as a "Nomenclatural Concept", which is roughly the sum/average of all historical treatments, more or less (ambiguity and vagueness deliberate/intentional).
I think we can presently model the vagueness (by integrating on the strings alone), but not the deliberateness thereof (in contrast to other situations where vagueness is not intended)?
Yes - a TNU without any relationshipAssertions. Basically, the only implied associations with other TNUs is via the Protonym link (i.e., a Nomenclatural Assertion).
- Franz. 2010. Revision of Apotomoderes (Insecta: Coleoptera). => Actually, "Insecta" here is more of a social concession to an outdated data filing paradigm than
a claim to an active speaker role (related to name usages that I actually care about). I am not intending to apply my taxonomic expertise to "Insecta"; that is *out of scope* (though the string is being written).
So... in that case, the question is whether to represent "Insecta" as used in Franz 2010 as a scientific name, or vernacular name (two different ways of modelling names, as the latter do not have structured Codes). Even if you fall on the side of using it as a scientific (taxon) name, you can still create a TNU for it. In the spirit of Walter's pioneering work on this stuff, TNUs only represent "potential" taxa.
Aloha, Rich