You’re amazing, btw! Thanks for organising!
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Thanks 
But mostly, I’m on a sabbatical year for health reasons, and now that I’m finally stable, I’m desperately bored and looking for anything fun and educational to fill my time. This sort of thing fits my interests and skill set quite nicely. (for about eight years I was planning on becoming some flavour of teacher… iNat ruined me and now I think I’ll be an ecologist… but maybe still pursue a doctorate? Going through quarter-life crisis over here)
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Also a regimented strengthening and stretching program for your fingers, starting immediately. You wouldn’t want to be benched with a pulled finger muscle when the competition begins.
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oh god yall please dont get carpal tunnel over this, I have enough human suffering on my conscience already…
seriously, I have hurt my hands by sitting doing IDs for hours straight. It’s no joke. Don’t.
also, slow and steady will likely be the best approach. even ten minutes in Unknowns every day will make a huge difference. You can do this!
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Pretty funny! I already have long standing RSIs in my hands, so I will be that runner who finishes the 5k race long after dark to the cheers of my family🤪
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Is there a way to track non-research grade obs only? That would make a great category. I get that some people need to do ID things themselves for research purposes (even if already RG), but otherwise I think that energy would best be invested elsewhere and suspect many do it to boost their numbers/place on the leaderboad. iNat isn’t a place for competitions (this being said in a thread about an ID competition 
)
Also a category for audio IDs specifically would be really cool. I think many often choose to gloss those over (myself included).
I’ve been trying to figure out categories that beginners with very little ID skills would benefit from and haven’t come up with anything good yet, but I do think it is important to try to figure out a few of those so that it can be inclusive of all skill levels. I’ll keep my thinking cap on…
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I’m not going to exclude IDs on already-RG observations from the main categories, because for beginners it is a legitimate way to learn. Whenever I am learning a new species, I spend some time in the RG stuff, or mix it in with the Needs ID.
That said, even though this is a purely casual enterprise, I will be on the lookout for deliberate abuse / exploits, with a one-warning policy.
I think most categories would be more like “percent of IDs in category X” rather than “# of IDs in category X” so as to make volume less of an issue. I have to see what I can measure using filters and relatively simple calculations, because doing a one-by-one check is not practical given the number of users.
I’m also quite happy with improve% because it gives a huge advantage to newbies while power-identifiers won’t stand a chance. If I made 1000 more IDs today I wouldn’t even be at 101%.
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Yes, please!
Go to Identify page, then click Filters. One of the Categories is a dotted-line leaf with a question mark in it - click that.
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I do not feel comfortable meeting unknown people in Zoom, even though I am familiar with people on the forum. Perhaps having a forum version of the workshops would be a good alternative to Zoom workshops, or both could go on at the same time to make it more efficient.
Ah. Sorry it wasn’t clear – you don’t have to have your audio or video on! (just watch me) Would that be OK with you?
I’ll modify the top post.
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The problem is that I have access through Zoom via my University, which is registered with my actual name. I do not want show my real name for everyone to see on the internet. Hopefully, you understand my concerns. 
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Oh, absolutely understood. I think you can change your display name to anonymize yourself. Would you do me a favour and test that out, maybe with a trusted family member?
Since it is a University account, I am not allowed to change the name.
Got it. Well, we may be using a different platform – you can write in a platform you would prefer on the signup sheet. I want these workshops to be accessible to everyone :)
That is great! Since we are talking about preferences, I prefer the iNaturalist Forum. It seem prudent to have another poll on people’s platform preference for the identification workshops. Do you mind if I do one? Or maybe people should just post their preferences in the replies?
Preferred Platform for ID Workshops
- iNaturalist Forum
- Zoom
- Discord
- Other
0 voters
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I’ll have a question on preferred platform in the sign-up for each individual workshop. The first workshop (Unknowns for Beginners) has been announced.
No, I mean there is no way to search for how many of a particular user’s identifications were applied to observations in the unknown category. Therefore we could not have a contest to see who ID’d the most unknowns. People could self-report it, but no judge would be able to verify.
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I guess number of “leading” IDs would be as close as we could get.
An easy category for beginners - caterpillars - annotate Lepidoptera to larva.
Because people don’t say ‘Cultivated’ (they want an ID …) the distribution maps are skewed. I followup for our Cape plants. Is that Aloe striata in the middle of South America, planted in a garden? = marked as Not Wild. Is that, yes I can see it’s a plant, but what is it, is it really Aloe striata? = IDed up a level to fit.