I'm currently working on setting up the system to support multiple cultivar names for one plant.

I can do this a couple ways, so we have a choice to make here:

1) We can keep the system the way it is (where the plant has a cultivar field in the main name) and additional cultivar names can be added the same way that common names can be added. This method would leave the main "Cultivar" field as it is. You would have to make a decision which cultivar name goes into that field, and then any additional ones go into the extra fields created.

Or

2) We can remove the cultivar name field altogether from the plant name information, and instead set up cultivars to be exactly like common names. You would have the cultivars all grouped together, and whichever cultivar has the most thumbs-ups becomes the primary cultivar name that is displayed when you're browsing plants, etc.

I think the second choice makes the most sense, and is consistent with how we're handling common names, but I'd love to hear feedback, especially from moderators and those who will be using this multiple-cultivar-per-plant feature.

Ditto to choice #2.

How would one find the cultivars that are not primary?

Karen

The roses would have the most additional names so personally, my choice is #1 as we currently have it set up Rose (Rosa 'Glowing Peace')
but Zuzu may feel differently. Not sure I would want a thumbs up dictating what name it would predominantly go by.

It would be part of the search Karen so like my above rose link, you can search by the name Philipe Noiret and get that link.

Calif_Sue said:The roses would have the most additional names so personally, my choice is #1 as we currently have it set up

Whichever way we go here, I can take what we currently have and migrate the information out of their current fields into the new ones. So there won't be any manual work here, as far as I can tell.

Calif_Sue said:but Zuzu may feel differently. Not sure I would want a thumbs up dictating what name it would predominantly go by.

I can see why that wouldn't be a good idea. Perhaps we could make it instead that only moderators can determine the order of the cultivars, and which one is on the top and therefore is used?

So does that change your opinion of how these are repesented? Do you think option #2 may sound better now?

Yes, I think if we can maintain control of the primary cultivar name, then it would be fine. Zuzu should be up in about an hour to weigh in though.

I'll wait to hear from her, then.

I'm sorry. A combination of late work and an early appointment kept me away from the Internet until now.

Sue's right. I would want option #2, but with the moderators choosing the order of the cultivar names.

I would never want the main cultivar name to be chosen on the basis of popularity. We already have a problem with the thumbs-up feature on photos. The latest photos are getting multiple thumbs-up because people see them, whereas far superior earlier photos are not seen and don't rise to the top. I wish we could still control the order of the images.

zuzu said:I would want option #2, but with the moderators choosing the order of the cultivar names.

I would never want the main cultivar name to be chosen on the basis of popularity.

That's how we'll do it, then.

This work is finished.

I have created a new place for cultivar names, and it acts just like the common names area.

I have also updated all plants to move the cultivar name that it already had, over into the new area.

Starting now when you edit a plant's name, you have the option to add another cultivar name to this plant. This should only be used when one specific plant has more than one cultivar names.

If multiple cultivars exist, then the one with the most thumbs is used as the primary cultivar name. Only moderators can give thumbs to cultivar names.

Zuzu or Sue, do you want me to go into the Roses and pull out all the items in each "Alternative Names" field and add them as cultivar names to its plant?

Oh thanks Dave, and to your question, that would be a yes! What a HUGE time saver that would be for all the rose names!

Good. And this is just the Roses that are affected so far, right?

I also plan to give an automatic thumbs up to the current cultivar in every rose before I add the alternatives. This way the one that is currently on top will remain the top one.

So far that I've noticed. There may be a few plants I noticed like coneflowers and zinnias that I've seen mention of trademark names and alternative names also used in the nursery trade.

Those can be added plant by plant, then.

I have finished the work on Roses. All cultivar names have been copied out of the Roses databox up into the Cultivar Names area, and the primary cultivar name has been thumbed to make it the primary used name.

I'm planning to remove "Alternative Names" from the databox since I don't think you want it anymore, right?

Right!

Hmmm, I just did a test by entering the name 'Eden' in the search, and also rosa 'Eden' and I get this result:
http://garden.org/plants/searc...

The rose I have in mind though is not on that list even though it's one of the alternative names, in fact, in the U.S. it's the more popular name:
Rose (Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard')