Add ident_user_taxon_id and unident_user_taxon_id URL options

If I make a series of identifications of a species, there’s no easy way to pass that list on to another identifier for confirmations. See discussion of the issue here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-send-list-of-my-ids-of-a-species-to-another-person-to-confirm/14794 . You can use a combination of ident_user_id and ident_taxon_id URL options to sort of get what you want, but unfortunately it gets both observations I identified as that species PLUS observations I disagree with someone else’s ID of that species. The ident_user_taxon_id would include both the taxon ID and user ID together as part of the argument. The unident_user_taxon_id would restrict observations to those that someone identified as a given taxon but the named user didn’t.

Not sure I fully get the situation, but I found the responses here helpful for siphoning off data with a specific identifier onto a spreadsheet -
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/siphoning-off-specific-data/14149/3

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  1. i think identifier_taxon_id and other_identifier_taxon_id are better labels your proposed parameters.
  2. since ident_user_id can accept multiple values, how would you propose that the new parameters respond to multiple values input in ident_user_id?
  3. i assume if ident_user_id is not input, then your new parameters would be ignored.
  4. suppose you identified something as birds and somebody else identified the same observation as blue jay. would you expect the observation to be pulled back if ident_user_id=danjohnson&unident_user_taxon_id=3(birds)?
  5. suppose in another observation, you did not make an identification, and someone else identified it as blue jay. would you expect the observation to be pulled back if ident_user_id=danjohnson&unident_user_taxon_id=3(birds)?
  6. would you want to be able to use both of your proposed parameters at the same time? if not, what should happen if both are included in the URL? (ignore both?)
  7. would you want to be able to use multiple values for either or both of your proposed parameters?
  8. fundamentally, you’re trying to see the results in the Identify screen, right? (so at the end of the day, if the parameters were added to the Explore screen but not the Identify screen, that would do you no good, right?)
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It occurred to me after making this request that there’s perhaps a better option. I’ll call it “confirm_identifer_taxon_id.” This combines both of the proposed commands into one. It would take two or three options, the first option would be the user id of the person who made the IDs needing confirmation, the 2nd would be the taxon ID, and the third would be the ID of the other identifier that would be providing confirming IDs. If the 3rd option is absent it would be assumed to be the ID of whoever is running the command. Normally if this list is sent to another user, it would only have the two options. Having the optional 3rd option would allow the sender to effectively see the list of items the recipient would see. So for example the option would be either confirm_identifier_taxon_id=“dan_johnson,123456,joe_smith” or confirm_identifier_taxon_id=“dan_johnson,123456”

I liked your changes in the names of the proposed options so if you have a better idea for the name of this revised option, say so. Concerning your comments above:

  1. I’m not sure why someone would want to run both ident_user_id and the new option together, but if they do, it would be an AND operation. adding ident_user_id with remove any observations that didn’t have an ID by those listed in ident_user_id.

  2. I don’t understand. I assume if someone uses my proposes option(s), they would normally not use ident_user_id, since the new command already provides who the identifier is.

  3. I think you have typos in the commands options, but if I understand you, if my ID is birds and the other person ID is blue jay, it would not show up in their list. I expect it to only show if they don’t have an ID or their ID is higher in rank. I’m not familiar with your “pulled back” terminology.

  4. The only options that should ever show are those where the user given in ident_user_taxon_id made an ID.

  5. Actually I would only see unident_user_taxon_id be used in conjunction with ident_user_taxon_id, never by itself. List all observations not identified as birds? Is there any use in that?

  6. I could see allowing multiple taxa, but don’t see multiple users as an option.

  7. I think I only care about Identify.

ok. some thoughts on the new proposal:

  1. my interpretation of your original request was that you wanted 2 new taxon parameters (ident_user_taxon_id and unident_user_taxon_id). but it sounds like you now effectively want to define an overloaded function (confirm_identifier_taxon_id) that takes either 2 or 3 parameters:
    a. a second instance of ident_user_id
    b. ident_user_taxon_id aka identifier_taxon_id (a new taxon parameter)
    c. (optional) other_ident_user_id (my label for it; a new user parameter, not a taxon parameter)
  2. technically, i suppose it’s possible to do what you’re describing in your new proposal, but i doubt that any developer would want to implement it this way, because:
    a. you’d still have to effectively process the input for 3 parameter values, but those parameter values could not be used in any context other than to drive the action for your proposed function
    b. the 3 parameter values would have to be taken in a specific order, as opposed to being assigned by parameter id. (that would require a lot of extra validating to make sure that you’ve input 2 or 3 parameter values, not 1 value or 4 values etc. it would also be necessary to have a lot of extra validations to make sure the first value specified looks like a user_id, and the second value input looks like a taxon_id, etc.)
    c. in the case of your first parameter/value, it would effectively be a second instance of ident_user_id, which you suggested yourself that you would never use in conjunction with the existing instance of ident_user_id. so it doesn’t make sense to have have 2 things that effectively do the same thing but in mutually exclusive contexts.
  3. so i think it would better for you to think of things more in terms of relatively independent parameters (which is the path you originally started with). i think you’ve been consistent in requesting these:
    a. use the existing ident_user_id
    b. add a new identifier_taxon_id which will filter by identification taxon id made by (any of) the specified Ident_user_id(s) (and which will not do anything if ident_user_id is not specified)
    so then would the other parameter be a taxon parameter (as in your original request) or a user parameter (as in your second proposal)?

It occurs to me the identifier_user_taxon_id would be very useful also for the following purpose: I want to browse all observations of a given species identified by a particular expert. This is useful to help learn to identify a species.

On other matters, it appears I can’t edit my original request to help clarify things. Is that true?

unfortunately, yes, i think posts become uneditable at some point. moderators and staff might be able to update your original post though. so you could reach out to one of them to help. in the meantime you can clarify your original request in a new post in this thread, and that might make the moderator’s job easier, since it would be just copy and paste back to the original post.

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for what it’s worth, i made something the other day that could probably be used in this particular case. see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/provide-a-way-to-filter-observations-by-disputed-ids/6698/15.

it was written to find observations with identification disagreements, but the workflow – finding identifications that meet certain criteria and then getting the associated observations – can be applied to this, too. (just filter for identifications of a specific taxon by a specific user, instead of looking for identifications with disagreements.)

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