Talk:Single-access key

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Equating dichotomous keys with "single-access" keys is slightly misleading. A dichotomous key often includes multiple ways to access any given taxon, and so identification may often be made along any of several fixed steps. This would seem to make such a key "multi-access". Conversely, a tabular or matrix key may have only a single set of choices that lead to a given taxon, which would seem to make it "single-access". The difference between the two is that the sequence of steps in the paths is fixed in one case but not in the other; this distinction is not conveyed clearly by "single-access" vs. "multi-access". However, a better terminology is not obvious. Little analytical attention has been given to identification keys, so far as I can tell... Paalexan (talk) 20:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A better terminology is found in the use as Polychotomy to refer to non-temporal sequential order of structure as opposed to Polytomy to refer to temporal based sequential order of structure when describing branching due to growth or evolution. Plain vanilla with chocolate chips (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Single-access key may also be confused with single-access point as used in Cloud computing where cloud computing infrastructure often appears as a single point of access for all consumers' computing needs. Plain vanilla with chocolate chips (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Dichotomous key" should perhaps be main title.

A Google search comparison yields 1,550,000 results for "Dichotomous key" vs only 391,000 for "single-access key". Similarly, Google Scholar yields 5,680 hits and 59, respectively. This article appears to be written more from a computer science perspective and less from a biological or general usage perspective.--Animalparty-- (talk) 09:15, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]