Amount of "Unknown" records is decreasing

It would be best to file a Bug Report with as many specific details (screenshots, browser name and version, etc etc) as possible.

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Thats true with a few taxa, but I believe in the majority of cases a species level ID is possible, provided that there is a sufficient number and quality of photos accompanying the observation

For instance, when I photograph plants, I try to get ATLEAST 1 photo for each of the following:

  • The corrola
  • The calyx
  • The floral arrangement
  • The leaf
  • The leaf arrangement
  • Petiolar/ pedicel scars and bracts
  • The whole plant

Thats about 6 or 7 photos for 1 observation. Sometimes its less, sometimes its more, depending on the Genus or Family of plant I’m photographing (some require photos of the bulbs/ corms)

Hence, in my opinion, just 1 or 2 photos of a plant is simply not good enough by any standard, and believe me when I say I see alot of these kind of observations, even from well-respected and long time users of iNat.

I’ve learned over the years that it is best practice to take many photos, and that it results in the highest chance of the observation being ID’d. However, I strongly feel that the onus for promoting and encouraging such practice amongst other users lies squarely with iNat (if getting as many species level/ Research grade observations as possible is the ultimate aim of course)

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Wow, thanks for being willing to step into the weird mix! Different people can approach it in their own way- some avoid the very recent entries since the uploader may still be working on the record. But if you go the other direction, to the very oldest, sometimes those are the “leftovers” of whatever a lot of people already couldn’t identify, so they may be harder to figure out.

Maybe somewhere in the middle of the pile to start, like in year 2018 entries, will give a nice mix of easy/interesting records. Your looking at those might be one of the first times someone beyond the observer has really examined the record.

Besides time-wise, another way to look at it, I gather from prior responses, is to start locally, with Unknowns from your geographic area. You probably have a feel for what is around you. You bring the “expertise” of maybe living in/nearby the actual environment of the observation. It’s so cool that many places around the planet have their own data-watchers here. :)

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Heh, I remember crouching and photographing this young rattlesnake in the desert a few years ago and then realizing I probably needed a top-down shot of the intraocular scales to get to species, so I stood up quickly and nearly got bitten. I wouldn’t advise always trying to get a full set of diagnostic shots for every taxon. ;-) But yes, I agree iNat could do better about encouraging observers to take more and better photos.

Getting as many RG observations as possible is an aim, but not the primary aim of iNat. Working on better onboarding is on the agenda, but much of our designer’s time is currently being taken up with the notifications revamp. One possibility is (eventually) using the computer vision suggestions to trigger advice, like “looks like you’re photographing a flower. try to get photos of the leaves and stems as well,” which would be pretty cool.

But I also think that, realistically, the majority of people aren’t going to be taking 6-7 photos of a plant. I’ve been using iNat for nearly 12 years now and I personally don’t have that kind of patience, it would make each hike feel like a homework assignment. And for many people, just learning that the plant they came across is in the legume family, or that the spider they found is not a brown recluse is educational and helpful.

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I sometimes find that the more I know about a species and its relatives, the fewer photographs I take, since I know what exactly is needed for its ID.
For a plant I don’t know much about, I’ll usually take 4 to 6 photos of key features.

But if I know, for instance, that for the 6-ish (only 2 of which are at all common in my region) species of Senecio in my country, you only need 1 or 2 photos for species ID… I’m not taking more. I’d rather spend that time recording additional plants.

Anyway, I feel this is wandering off-topic. Might be worth moving it (@tiwane).

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I’m currently working my way “back in time”, as it were, for my country and a few nearby. I’ve done everything I can for the little islands, and for the two big ones, I’m currently in May 2019. I can guess whether a user is active or not by the number of posts - mostly, they’re not. If I can’t put in any kind of identification, and there’s nothing within Frequently Used Responses that would be relevant, I just mark as reviewed and move on. If a user isn’t active, they may never see me asking “which of these organisms do you want”, or “please delete this duplicate”, but the next unknown-hunter who comes along will see that the user has had that comment, and nothing has happened in the intervening time, so can just scroll on.

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Good thoughts. I just started and saw a pic with two possibilities, cattails and bulrushes. I answered for the cattails explaining that since there were a couple more of these in the pic, that’s what they wanted.
I also check to see if they are active.
I like your thinking that an answer will save time for another person doing the same. :)

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This is the first time I’ve seen that frequently used responses page, and I’m approaching 10K IDs. Just goes to show how long it can take to learn everything about this amazingly complex site.

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There seems to be a lot of nooks and crannies in this place.

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It never hurts to explore and know your habitat ;)

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Thanks to everyone going through the unknowns. I use sort by date updated to try to help follow up.

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The “date updated” view really gives a sense of momentum on some of the tough ones!

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Nice job everyone! Decreasing the number of unknowns seems like a fun activity that can be done by anyone (classes, students, kids, retired folks, people with a lot of time on their hands!, etc.).

Out of 30,113,464 iNat observations right now, it looks like there are 416310 unknowns, so about 1.38% of the observations.

There seems to be a lot of captive/cultivated pictures, especially of plants. Do you just click on that cultivated tab, and it then turns into a casual record?

I’ve recently been focusing on the unknowns from the new accounts, using the account creation tab:

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Yes, you have it right! Later someone can pull up the not-wild records as a subset in the Casual pile and look at labeling them, but for now you can tuck those out of the way.

And wow, that total number marks around ~10% decrease in Unknowns since the start of this thread. So folks have been pretty busy!

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This is a fun one! Unfortunately, there are no finds in my area in the last week. :(

Time to broaden my horizons ?

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You can change the number in the URL from 1w to, say, 4w to see a bit further into the past :)

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Welcome to the forum! :)

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Yes! When I ran out of Unknowns in Israel, I went through Palestine… when I ran out of those, I started on the whole Middle East…
The mix of what you find in the Unknowns varies a lot by place. So try somewhere new, with new and strange stuff!
Alternatively, you can focus on further categorizing obs sorted to Kingdom into Phyla, Class, Order etc.

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I follow all of the unknowns I ID so I can learn what they are, as most of them I only have a course ID, and because how the system works interests me. Plus I like to read any comments and questions from newer users in case I can help them out. The number of notifications can get difficult and I have lost them all several times by clicking on the wrong thing. I wish they could be saved so you didn’t have to go through all of them at once.

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I do unknowns for Canada until there aren’t any I can ID at any level - which actually hasn’t happened yet, but it is the goal. I sometimes do North America but this is a LOT of observations and a lot of Robins, dandelions and dogs. At some point typing in “spider” or “beetle” again becomes something you just can’t do one more time - at least for that day. I suggest you find a system that works for you and do that.

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