Agreeing with experts and "research grade"

As a sort of mid-level iNat user (neither novice nor expert identifier), I do one of the following when someone adds an ID to my observation -

  1. If it’s something I know quite a bit about, or an ID that I had a hunch of (but didn’t add because of my uncertainty and probability of biasing others’ inputs) then I will agree with it after a very quick, cursory Google search.

  2. If it’s something I know a little about and can do with a little more expertise myself, I will ask the identifier to point out the key characters, then agree to it once I know what I see. I may tag another identifier if I’m still confused.

  3. If it’s something I’m absolutely clueless about (to the point that additional info about the ID will be of little use to me), I’ll thank the identifier and tag another one from the list of top identifiers for that taxon, available on the right hand side. I will keep an observation of this kind from turning RG from my agreement, even if the first identifier is very confident.

When I’m the identifier of an observation and my input is based on a very strong but non-100% guess, I add the ID with a sentence asking the observer not to agree unless they are basing it on other strong inputs (either via other identifier(s) or via their own background reading).

Also, this is very directly connected to what RG means, or should mean - https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/rename-research-grade-discussion-and-polls/590 (you might have seen this already). I sometimes find myself wishing I could express agreement with an ID, without having the action push the observation to RG. :) I guess that’s a stretch, though.

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