I’ve noticed recently that a lot of people like to add IDs to observations that are already research grade- some examples being blue moon variant greengrocer cicadas and that one species of moth that was thought to be extinct, or that photo of a salmon jumping for the stars. It already has like 10 IDs racking up with more to count, and i’m just confused as to the reason why people do this?? I’m not attempting to be rude I genuinely want to know. Is it that they want to have that species presented in the list of ones they have identified for?? Or do they want to be included?
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Part of it seems to be just basic human instincts and the desire to be part of things. People have left little memorials of their existence for millennia:
Some sort of “Been there, done that!” or “I was here too!”
The other part is probably a “might as well” aspect. A lot of people look at extraordinary observations out of curiosity. If you’re already on the observation page and you are confident what it is, then you might as well add the ID. It may be unnecessary but it isn’t harmful.
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See previous threads:
Why do some observation receive plenty of agreeing IDs?
Why You Should Add IDs to Research Grade Observations
In Defense of the Thousand Confirming Identifications
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I enjoying looking at the photos of many species, especially birds. I tend to make an ID on any observation I check out and can make an ID. I often don’t even notice until later that there was a bunch of IDs already.
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There is some value in duplicate IDs (as long as they are correct, or at least as long as the identifier pays attention to corrections). They help to “future proof” the observation, in case somebody deletes their account (and all their IDs with it), and more people looking at something makes it more likely that mistakes will be caught, so it increases the reliability of the data.
But I think the main thing is that it’s fun.
The primary goal of iNaturalist is to get people engaged with nature, and most of what is being done is done by volunteers. So things that are more fun tend to get done more often, and that includes identifying cool and interesting observations. People are having fun, and that’s good!
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I used to skip over RG stuff and just mark “reviewed” rather than adding an ID, but one day I realized I suddenly had a ton of Needs ID stuff that I’d apparently maked reviewed without identifying, which confused me - turns out a couple of prolific identifiers deleted their accounts and all their IDs along with it.
If I’d just added an agreeing ID in the first place, it would have been no more effort than marking as reviewed, and would have prevented a ton of stuff from being knocked back into the Needs ID pool. So now I add my IDs even if there are already plenty.
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That´s horrible, now I have to go back to every single one of my observations and mark agree on all the ones that seem correct. Just to make sure.
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I think its kinda irritating and harmless to tbh. Would be cool if after a certain point, only a conflicting ID could be added. For example 4 people say something is Y, and confirming it further is closed off. But lets say I disagree and say that it is Z, then my ID goes in, and further confirmation of Y is allowed again.
the problem is, on another post someone mentioned is almost impossible to change a wrong id after so many incorrect identifications.
lets say a bug was posted
someone called it bug A, followed by more bug A confirmations. When someone else comes to call it bug B is hard to over drive the other name,
I know it from experience, a tree I posted wich I didnt know the name, so I only put PLANTS was called a very wrong name, so I put PLANTS again under the name, and later when I found the real species and tried to put the name, the robot would keep showing the wrong name. Which isnt that important once you click inside the observation details, BUT IT DID BUG ME OFF
Because it was clearly the wrong name!
how I fixed? I created a second account to confirm my ID… now it has the right name.
But what about IDs with 4…5…10 wrong IDs? I cant imagine.
Creating a second account could get you into trouble. In the instances you describe it is necessary to rally the troops to support your position. However, figuring out who to tag to get help can be a challenge. Since most IDers identify regionally, there is likely someone in that area who you can tag to get that support and knowing who that is usually comes with experience of working in the community.
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I was just starting to use INAT back then, so I didnt know could get me in trouble. Also back then I didnt know people could tag other people. I discovered only after someone did it in one of my observations much much later.
But is technically not my account, is my mom´s. We dedicated so much time to find the name of that tree… we were annoyed the real name wasnt being portrayed.
My bad, my bad.
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Two scenarios come to mind:
One, already mentioned, is that when IDers delete their profiles, their IDs go away, so having a few backup IDs is a good thing.
Second, which I always bring up, is that an extra ID serves as a “preemptive disagreement” with anyone who comes along later with a wrong ID. This is why I’ll even add higher-than-the-CID level non-disagreeing IDs to observations, to make it harder for any future misidentification to move the ID away from the general taxon I’m certain it belongs to.
I’d say that a “popular” post like the ones you’ve suggested is more likely to get “vandalized” by misidentifications, so it’s probably best to have a good solid series of correct IDs to keep the CID from being easily change. I mean, look at all the misidentifications on Gerald, but he’s got enough correct IDs to still be a Muskrat!
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The problem (as has been said before) is that if all the IDs are wrong, it’s very hard to change. I recently came across an incorrectly identified RG observation with 5 species-level IDs. A comment hasn’t encouraged anyone to review, tagging the top identifier of the correct species hasn’t got anywhere (as I’ve found before with that person) - now what?
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Ohh i see! Thank you!! 
That makes much more sense thank you! I didn’t even think about vandalised observations.
5 wrong needs 11 right.
Or you try to get one of the 5 to withdraw or delete, if they are still active.
Move on down the list of identifiers - broaden your reach either up taxon levels, or across geography - or if it does not need too specialist knowledge - ask the identifiers who are generally active on that taxon or location.
What is the taxon?
Not everyone may work at the same rate as you and it may take time for those you tagged to reply. My strategy has become to make an ID and then try to be patient and wait (hard in the era of instant information availability to remember humans are still human). But this means you’re likely to forget about it, no? But the observation with wrong ID probably isn’t going anywhere, just not getting fixed. So presumably you added your ID and are currently sitting as maverick. My strategy is to back after some appropriate time…weeks? months? I recently went back to observations where I had been maverick for a year with no movement and tagged additional people to get their opinion. My goal is to at least get me out of maverick status as at least this will kick it back to ‘needs ID’ where people might more easily find it. To do this I use the site identifier stats page (here’s mine) and click on IDs for others by category where mavericks show as a category and go through the oldest to seek help on the ID. In some cases the person I had tagged just missed my tag, in others they declined to change, but usually I can tag others who might be able to move this along.
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Your Proud Mavericks would be easy to find. I presume you mean those where you are right, and CID is wrong?
Replace my name with yours
You can also filter by the Pre-Maverick project for two agree and your ID is different. You will know if the 2 who agree, or the other one - is right.
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It’s Marianthus bignoniaceus wrongly identified as Bossiaea prostrata - without flowers, which would make it very clear. Both are native and the former is relatively localised in only a couple of areas. Unfortunately, the second-top identifier for M bignoniaceus is one of the people identifying this incorrectly. (Yes, I know that potentially undermines my ID.) I’ll try both having more patience and tagging some more people, so thanks for those suggestions - but part of the reason I mention it is just to emphasise the other side of the ‘the more IDs the merrier’ coin.
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Yeah, I’ve seen observations where 4 or 5 IDers – all specialists in the relevant taxon – had interpreted a particularly tricky photo as taxon X until someone came along and pointed out that this or that feature didn’t fit and what about taxon Y. Once this was pointed out, the specialists agreed that of course it was Y, but it took a lot of effort and tagging people to get the ID corrected, because some of the users missed or only sporadically follow notifications, or maybe one of the users was no longer active on iNat.
Even though these observations got fixed in the end, it would have been easier and less work for everyone if the observations had fewer IDs to start with.
So I don’t think more IDs are automatically always better – particularly if many of these IDs are made without a lot of knowledge or without critically assessing the current ID, which is often the case with “popular” observations. Using the “favorite” button would sometimes be a better response.
I’m not saying that “extra” IDs can’t be useful, but it isn’t as simple as “more IDs are always better”; there are disadvantages too, which I think it doesn’t hurt to keep in mind when deciding whether to add an ID.
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