You're right in that in terms of pure mineral nomenclature, the mineral species is isocubanite and everything else is irrelevant.

But the association here was specificially with zincian isocubanite, and if we just list the species in our database as 'isocubanite', we're losing data. We're disregarding the zinc.

This is not a matter of "well it can go in the description", because that's not how databases work. 

In order to accurately define the association found at this particular locality, an entry is needed that describes 'zinc bearing isocubanite'.

Now, I agree there could be an alternative database design where the adjectival modifiers are separate from the names, and are essentially defined properties. And in many ways that would be better, because you'd simply flag them as being "zinc bearing" when adding isocubanite to a locality.

But we don't do this for several reasons.   

Firstly, the list of such modifiers would be huge, and the user interface in adding this to a locality, or selecting it for a photo, would be immense.

Secondly, it would also add another area where contributors could make mistakes in attributing believed varietal adjectives to the mineral in their specimens that make no sense.

But most importantly, it makes it harder to easily search for them. If I want to know what this "zincian high cubanite" is, I can now simply type it into mindat and it tells me. With a varietal modifier system that becomes a lot more complex.


We also have to deal with things that are misused eg 'cadmian smithsonite' (which frequently isn't)   - so having a page where we can explain these issues is important.