Vague Cardinal Directions in Modifier

When cardinal directions are used as a modifier they may not always need clarification. If there is a location entered in the locality field it is implied that the modifier is directly applied to the locality. There are instances where the locality field is blank, but a there is additional information that can be added to the modifier field for clarity. Each instance must be addressed individually, but there are some basic guidelines that can help standardize the database entries and provide clarity as to which part of the overall location it is intended to modify.

If there is a cardinal direction that is being used to modify the Country, State or County field, it should be clear which of those is being modified. As seen with WFVZ#200993, the County field is what is being modified.

Example (WFVZ#200993)

In this example, the modifier clearly is modifying the county. If it had just been entered as "South" it might have implied Southern Canada or Southern Newfoundland & Labrador.

(WFVZ#43964)

Again, in this example, it is clear that Russia is the what is being modified. If the modifier was entered as "Southeast" it would have implied southeast Kalmuk as the locality, giving false precision to the location where the set was collected.