Hi Roger,
Rich - yes. I think you sum up the difference between new combinations in ICZN and ICBN well. But... just because the ICZN does not consider the usage of a name in a different genus as a nomenclatural act does not stop us creating a data object (TaxonName object) to represent what that name looks like in the new genus - perhaps with its new ending and possibly different author string (ICZN Recommendation 51G).
I agree that nothing is stopping us, but I forsee headaches down the road as a result of doing so. In your next message, you wrote:
"1. We have two kinds of GUID (one for TaxonNames and one for TaxonConcepts)."
From this I interpret that TaxonName GUIDs are different with TaxonConcept
GUIDs -- is that correct? If so, the problem is that a botanist would assign a new TaxonName GUID to a new combination, and a zoologist would assign a TaxonConcept GUID to the same entity, because "genus combination" is a property of a name in botany, and a properyy of a usage (~concept) in zoology.
Yes, you could certainly force-treat zoological names as though they were botanical names (treating new combinations as "new names"), just as you could easily force-treat botanical names as though they were zoological names (assigning TaxonName GUIDs only to basionyms, and representing new combincations via Usage/TaxonConcept GUIDs). I just believe that we will come to regret it if we leave the distinction "fuzzy".
My point has always been, and continues to be, that *IF* you have separate "kinds of GUID" for TaxonNames and TaxonConcepts, the line between the two should be unambigious (and ideally be consistent for both botany and zoology). After thinking about it some more, in the context of what has been written on this thread, I find myself coming back to that first "IF". Given that there seems to be a need and a desire to leave the definition of a "name unit" (to which a GUID is assigned) loose and flexible, then perhaps it would be premature to establish a GUID system for Name-Objects at all. Instead, I think we can both simplify *and* disambiguate taxonomic objects if there is only *ONE* GUID system -- which represents a Name-Usage instance.
In the case of datasets consisting of only namestrings, with no specific implied concept objects, the names can be interpreted as "NameString SEC Nobody" (=Nominal TaxonConcept in TCS). Nomenclators could use whichever subset of these Name-usage GUIDs that they wish to refer to their own version of a name-object. For example, ZooBank can concern itself only with those GUIDs attached to original basionym usage instances, and IPNI can manage both basionyms usage instances and new-combination usage instances. ConceptBank could expand the scope of GUIDs to all those usage instances that represent defined concepts. Name indexers could use the broadest set of GUIDs (effectively all name-usage instances).
So, in summary, my feeling is that if we are to think of "two kinds of GUID" for taxon objects, then we need an unambiguous (and cross-Code) distinction between the two. If such a distinction is too cumbersome to draw (as it seems to be, based on the current thread), then we should only go with one kind of GUID -- and by default it should be the one kind that is most flexible (=usage instance).
Aloha, Rich
P.S.
Is there a parallel with autonyms under ICBN? People use autonyms so should they have a GUID? But they are automatically created and mean different things in different circumstances.
"Autonyms" is the term that botanists use; "Nominotypical Names" is the term zoologists use. I'm pretty sure they mean the same thing (or something very similar). They add a layer of complexity no matter whether you represent a name as a botanical-style unit, or a zoological-style unit.