"Account Creation" filter added to Identify page

We have added a new filter for account creation to the Identify page, in the “More Filters” area:

Right now the two options are to see only observations by accounts that were created more than one week ago, or to only see observations made by accounts created within the last week.

The intention for the former choice is allow identifiers to filter out observations by new users if they want to, especially in situations like the recent Penang Bioblitz when things might be overwhelming and the identifer wants to focus on other new observations. Conversely, the second filter can be used to focus only on identifying observations by new users and welcoming them to the site. It should be helpful in as users start joining for the the upcoming City Nature Challenge.

Either way, we hope all new observations are seen by other users and IDed, or marked captive, etc; this just gives identifiers a bit more control over the types of observations they will be seeing when using the Identify page.

Let us know how these are working out for you, and thanks to everyone who takes the time to contribute IDs and comments to the observations of other users.

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Nice! This will definitely be handy. Thank you staff!

One scenario that comes to mind is the high school class that mass-creates their iNat accounts on a Friday, then goes on break for a week or two, then comes back and starts their assignment. The “past week” filter won’t distinguish those. So I’m wondering if we also need something like Users With “1-20 observations” or “20 or more observations” as a filter option. I feel another feature request coming on… :no_mouth:

Er, so is that “Filter out observations from accounts that are less than a week old” or “Filter out observations that were created during the first week of activity of an account”? Because it looks like the former, but that would just delay the surge for a week.

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The former. The intention is to not avoid the observations entirely, but cut back the number of observations by new users one has to wade through during times of great activity for them, if one doesn’t want to see them.

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if it was a problem to see them at all, then at least the majority would hopefully be dealt with by others by the time the week was up.

And I think it would be good to see how this works for a week or two, before suggesting other ways it could be done! CNC will be a good testing ground!

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A post was split to a new topic: Instructing users to split into separate observations

Looking forward to the City Nature Challenge, can you elaborate a little on this? Going through Identify, I see all kinds of plants that I suspect are cultivated, but knowing very little about cultivated plants I can’t be sure that they are not naturalized. Is it better during the City Nature Challenge to err on the side of marking these suspect observations as “captive/cultivated”, given the time constraints?

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I guess it’s likely a different threshold for everyone. To me, if something is clearly cultivated - in a pot, in a formal garden, etc - I’ll mark it captive/cultivated. Zooming in on maps is also really helpful. But if I can’t be sure, I’ll often leave a comment asking if it’s a wild plant.

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Curious if anyone used this during the City Nature Challenge?

The “Account Creation” filter? I did, and surprisingly to me, just the opposite of how I thought I would want to use it. I used it to search for the accounts created in the past week. It makes me feel much less exasperated when it’s clear that every observation I’m looking at is from a new user.

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Thanks for the feedback!