I’m one of those masochists and it’s amazing what can be found hidden among even the oldest of observations. But I do sometimes wonder if my time couldn’t be better spent. It sort of makes me think of the topic “How to surface interesting observations”. Perhaps one of the problems that make it potentially so unsatisfying is that all would-be identifiers have to sift through all the same blurry photos to find those hidden gems that make it seem worthwhile (“worthwhile” in this case meaning with a good/high potential of moving forward in the ID process). This is where an “interesting” flag could help separate the wheat from the chaff… although I well appreciate the potential pitfalls.
Of course an IDer can then mark as reviewed the ones they don’t want to see again, but the next IDer still has to wade through the same sea of blurry photos, and so on ad infinitum.
I admit I do sometimes add a “bold” ID or even an outright guess to try and bring the observation to the attention of those more able than I to move it forward, but in that case I always add a note explaining my motivation and my willingness to withdraw immediately if my tentative ID gets in the way.
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