[just noting as an aside, in case you didn’t know, that iNat comments can include images. It’s not necessarily obvious/intuitive that this is possible given there isn’t an ‘insert file’ button like there is for forum posts, but it is nonetheless possible to embed them - provided you know this functionality exists - via html. See eg https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/322341824]
I wonder if one possible solution to the need for identification information is the creation of iNaturalist projects devoted to particular taxa in particular regions. Within each project, journal posts could collect and link to relevant information, including a wiki to make it easy to find the relevant information within each project.
For example, I could see a project for the vascular flora of New England in the United States. First of all, there’s already an excellent online key to exactly this group, Go Botany (although I’ll note that Go Botany taxonomy does not always correspond one-to-one with iNaturalist taxonomy and the site overall is a little out-of-date). Second, there could be links to other iNat resources, such as Daniel Atha’s guide and key to Persicaria, mentioned above, as well as links to other useful resources outside iNat. Third, there could be posts on, say, what genera are difficult to ID to species, or what to photograph for ferns or sedges, or notices of useful in-person or online classes and workshops.
I see a couple of advantages to this: it’s within iNaturalist (not on Wikipedia, for example) and it’s independent of staff efforts. A disadvantage: spreading the word about the project would be labor-intensive; you’d have to @mention many people in the beginning and continue doing that over time as new iNaturalists demonstrate an interest in the suject. A bigger disadvantage: who would actually create and keep this sort of project up? Sure, there could be several project managers and those could change over time, but it would be a lot of work. As someone who’s already quite active on iNat, I can say I can’t envision taking this on; I’ve already had to bow out of the Ambassador program because I just don’t have the time and energy for one more iNat thing (and I’m retired!).
As an alternative definition, an “expert” could be someone able to notice issues within the literature… ;)
Limited access to information (or difficulty with picking a right source of information) is certainly a problem. There’s already a trove of usable information out there, available for free: I would start by improving its discoverability, as well as handholding any interested person through it (onboarding, tutorial, automation…). No ‘algorithmic surfacing of ID tips and tricks’ needed (yet)!
Looking at the iNaturalist website right now: (a) under which submenu hides the page referencing, by country and iconic taxon, a few relevant books and web resources? (b) how many prospective identifiers know where to find, and then use, the existing checklist for some place?
Nearctic Moth-specific reply here, but maybe it applies in other areas.
The range maps on Moth Photographers Group (MPG) were used to write the descriptions of ranges of Nearctic moths on Wikipedia. Before Steve Nanz took over at MPG, the range maps had a lot of erroneous data that was mass-imported from various databases, leading to hundreds of the maps having wildly over-inclusive ranges. Steve has really cleaned up the maps on MPG over the past 10 years, but the Wikipedia editors have not updated the pages, so hundreds of Nearctic moth Wikipedia pages have ludicrous descriptions of the species’ ranges, with MPG linked as a source, and iNat imports this information in its “about” section.
Just as a random example, this Arizona specialty https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/471579-Idia-terrebralis#articles-tab used to have MPG map dots in Illinois based on misidentifications, and now Wikipedia lists Illinois in the range. This rare species from the East https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/417169-Eupithecia-cocoata gets Washington erroneously listed in its range. This western species https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/483906-Chionodes-luteogeminatus gets listed as being in Iowa. There are lots more like this, usually poorly-known species with few or no observations whose Wikipedia pages are entirely based on the MPG data from circa 2018. I really hope no one parrots the Wikipedia ranges for these species displayed on iNat and uses them for any other purposes, as this will continue the spread of misinformation. In the case of the ones with Iowa erroneously listed in the ranges (which is a lot), I even know what specific over-inclusive Iowa database Bob Patterson had back in ~2006 that put those dots on the MPG map… who’d have thought that 20 years and 4 platforms later those same misidentified records would continue to propagate.
tl;dr for many poorly-known species of Nearctic moths, Wikipedia’s info is bad and iNat’s use of Wikipedia spreads incorrect information about them.
Good point, and my experience is similar. The wikipedia articles on some morel species are terribly outdated, severely misleading, and in some cases, worse than no information at all. Some of the images show the wrong species, and the descriptions sometimes use obsolete cosmopolitan species concepts that predate modern taxonomy (lumping many distinct species together under a single name). One might respond “ok, why don’t you go fix that if you have the knowledge and know it’s a problem?” That would be a fair point, and maybe I will eventually, but it would certainly be easier if I didn’t have to make a separate account on a different site with different rules and etiquette that I am unfamiliar with.
It’s also the case that no matter how much I clean up those articles, it is not a place for an actual ID guide or key of any sort. When two similar species can be reliably differentiated by a single diagnostic trait supported by a reliable source, it’s easy to include that in the article. When ID is more complicated, they don’t want you to post a grid of images showing different traits and their morphological variability and getting into the weeds about how to reach an ID in practice. It’s simply not intended for this purpose, which is why I support having a wiki here.
Also, in response to some of the other comments on journal posts, the problem is that even if high quality journal posts were easy to find, they aren’t collaborative and can’t be edited by others. Even if I write an amazing guide on morel ID, if I leave the site, it can’t be updated to reflect changes in taxonomy or knowledge. If three different IDers write 3 different partially overlapping journal posts on ID for a taxon (or taxa within a group), they can’t be consolidated into a single comprehensive guide, and errors in any of the individual posts can’t be fixed by others. The result is scattered, disorganized, sometimes conflicting, and often hard-to-find. I think most observers probably don’t even know that journal posts exist, and most IDers don’t want to put in the time to make one because they feel that no one will see it. Being able to collaborate on a guide with other IDers would also reduce the burden on any one person.
The regional issue isn’t trivial, but an article/guide for a taxon could be broken into sections covering ID considerations for different regions as necessary. It would be quite challenging for some taxa, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying for any. The best approach would depend on the particulars of the taxa being covered.
I rely a lot on external resources and guides for these kinds of things, like FloraQuest. Each guide and resource has different ways to ID things, and in turn has helped me to take better photos when I can.
iNat species and other taxon pages rely heavily on Wikipedia, so I would argue in favor of working within that platform and then those changes would presumably show up in iNat on species pages. If there are key ID features, those to me are things suited for inclusion in an existing Wikipedia page, rather than reinventing the wheel.
As far as I know and going by previous topics e.g https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/can-species-identification-tips-be-added-to-wikipedia/71675 , Wikipedia just is not the place for the type of information many active users, including me, wish for on iNat. Wikipedia is a rather good place for general information (although there is plenty misinformation), but not for identification tips.
In my opinion a new tab on species pages would be ideal place for such. Maybe with one section for tips that the community has agreed on and another for discussions.
I’m interested in Springtails and well connected with other top-identifiers and -observers and this is essentially what we are wishing for. A few of us already have our own websites, or the plan to make such, to congregate information relevant to identification, but there is nothing centralized and current information is scattered, often only in the brains of experts.
I do honestly not understand the point of “too many species“, so what ? Even if there will only be a few of these articles (I doubt it), they may still help many many people. Also not every species has to be covered, these notes should also be present at higher taxa, something like “This genus is only identifieable via microscopy, for a key see this and that website“ would already help a lot of people.
BugGuide is largely irrelevant to anyone outside North America, since the very minimal guidance usually doesn’t take account of any similar species found elsewhere. Wikipedia most certainly does include identification guidance, which is often much more relevant and comprehensive than anything found on BugGuide. Also, it can be accessed directly via the taxon pages on iNaturalist, so it makes little sense to claim that it’s irelevant. Here’s an example showing how Wikipedia can be much more helpful than BugGuide:
- BugGuide: Thymelicus lineola article
- Wikipedia: Thymelicus lineola article
It’s obviously true that many Wikipedia articles currently lack such helpful identification guidance, but it’s pointless complaining about that if you aren’t willing to make the necessary improvements yourself. For anyone interested in doing so, see this forum topic:
Both the community and the platform have existed for several decades now. The problem is that there just aren’t enough people willing to do the research and write the articles, and/or the relevant reference materials just aren’t readily accessible (i.e. too expensive, out of print, behind paywalls, etc, etc).
Hosting yet another wiki on iNaturalst won’t solve anything. The problem isn’t technical, it’s socio-political. As usual, there’s lots of talk and not enough action - plus there are many politically-tainted barriers in the way that aren’t so easily overcome (see, for example, open access).
Out of curiosity, why? There are many extremely detailed species pages. I don’t see any reason why such entries wouldn’t be the place for ID tips.
Yes - it’s often claimed that Wikipedia isn’t meant for how-to guides, but I don’t see any real evidence for this. There are literally hundreds of scientific articles that provide exhaustive, step-by-step guides along with numerous worked examples. Take a look at these two, for instance:
These articles both describe algorithms, and aren’t shy about showing complete implementations using whatever technical language is appropriate for their subject matter. In biology, identification keys are also usually strongly algorithmic, so there’s no obvious reason why they can’t be given a similar treatment on Wikipedia.
Is there a culture of resistance amongst editors of species articles that is preventing the additon of keys, or more generally limiting the scope of identifications guides? Or is this just another one of those popular myths with no obvious origin? I find it hard to believe that Wikipedia itself has imposed any strict policies that apply to species articles, but not to other similarly technical scientific topics.
Maybe this?
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not - Wikipedia
(items 1 and 8 in particular)
Is there a culture of resistance amongst editors of species articles that is preventing the additon of keys, or more generally limiting the scope of identifications guides? Or is this just another one of those popular myths with no obvious origin? I find it hard to believe that Wikipedia itself has imposed any strict policies that apply to species articles, but not to other similarly technical scientific topics.
There are no species article specific rules on Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia prohibits overly scientific jargon which makes it difficult for the general public to understand. The most in-depth you’re going to get is description sections like these (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_golden_plover).
Wikibooks seems to be the more appropriate platform.
Exactly. I note that the bulk of the material in “quadratic formula” is mostly about different methods or proofs to derive the quadratic formula; it’s not really a how-to for your math homework.
Attempts to use Wikipedia to host identification guides are rapidly going to run afoul of the No original research policy (at least as currently interpreted)–it doesn’t matter if a reliable source says that this beetle has metallic green stripes on the elytra, unless that source explicitly says that the metallic green stripes distinguish it from all the other species, it’s “synthesis” to use that as a character in a key. (When the source explicitly says in its description of species X that it can be distinguished from Y and Z by certain characteristics, I have used that in Wikipedia articles, but not enough of that is explicit to build the resource people are hoping for.)
That I could get on board with. The issue I see with any attempt at a global set of ID pointers is that The important distinguishing features vary dramatically across species’ ranges, depending on what other species you’re trying to separate it from. I see this issue present itself on BugGuide all the time. Take for example https://www.bugguide.net/node/view/3244 which lists Ceratomia catalpae as a similar species to consider when identifying Mandcua sexta. This was clearly written be someone in the southeastern USA, where there aren’t a whole lot of species Mandcua sexta could be confused with. But in the southwestern USA, there are species that look wayyyy more similar to Mandcua sexta than the “similar species” listed in the BugGuide info. Even if you included those similar species, the guide would still be misleading for anyone outside of the USA and Canada, where species that look even more like Mandcua sexta occur. To make a global ID guide for this one species, you’d need to have pages of information going through “if you live in place A, you should compare to species B; if you live in place C, you should compare to species D and E…” etc. Eventually, the amount of information becomes so daunting that it fails to be helpful. But if you just leave it out, then the guide only works for a small percent of the species’ range.
It’s a tough trade-off to deal with, and it’s why field guides are almost always geographically-bound. A global field guide sounds like an awesome idea, but it can’t help but eventually devolve into a series of location-specific articles. A species that’s easily identifiable in one location will usually be much more difficult to separate from its congeners in a different location- the same species may be “dissection only” in Mexico and “easy ID” in Canada. I worry that a partial field guide may be worse than no field guide at all, as it may create false confidence that an ID has been reached, when in fact 30 other options weren’t considered because they weren’t on the radar of the person who wrote the guide. Guides for diverse taxa really need to stay geographically limited to be useful, as they can cover the identification landscape that’s relevant to a particular region, without getting bogged down in all the hundreds of ways that landscape changes when you move to a different location.
I’d recommend to rather link this umbrella project, that combines several helpful ID-projects
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/observations-with-helpful-id-tips-umbrella-project
I think your post identifies some genuine complexities that would certainly challenge the effort, but I still don’t think they are prohibitive.
I worry that a partial field guide may be worse than no field guide at all, as it may create false confidence that an ID has been reached, when in fact 30 other options weren’t considered because they weren’t on the radar of the person who wrote the guide.
If done properly, I don’t think this should be true. I focus on morels, which have extremely similar issues to the ones you described. Some taxa require sequencing to be identified in part of their range, but can be identified with ease in others. Often the boundaries are not well defined. Here is an examples of an article that does a reasonably good job of dealing with this issue for one species and describing how ID consideration varies by region (some names are dated, but it’s still a good example of how an article can be structured to deal with regionally-varying ID considerations):
https://www.mushroomexpert.com/morchella_esculentoides.html
I think the most important thing is not to write anything misleading. If you only know how to identify a taxon within a particular region or part of its range, that should be clearly stated in any writing you produce. That information can still be a valuable starting point for someone outside of your region, and they are welcome to expand it for additional regions if/when they learn the additional considerations required to ID it there. I imagine that many articles will have a “universal” description, tips to narrow down the possibilities that will be useful anywhere, followed by a regional breakdown. Depending on the complexity of the ID, this can be handled simply in a single section, as it was in the article above, or broken into more independent sections.
Perhaps some taxa have truly complicated IDs with extreme regional variation (i.e. a cosmopolitan species where ID is functionally broken into dozens of different regions, and the amount of information required for each is high). Perhaps the optimal solution there would be to present an overview of the situation and its complexity (i.e. “there are dozens or hundreds of species around the world that may be mistaken for ‘Taxon X’, and the process required to identify it depends heavily on the other taxa present at any given location”). Basically an article that says “it’s complicated”.
This would still be valuable. If I were a casual IDer not familiar with the taxon in question, that might tell me the ID is beyond me, or that I should at least do more research before attempting it. If I knew how to ID it in my area, it would warn me that I should be cautious before attempting IDs of the same taxon elsewhere. Perhaps a more general article or journal post could be written describing how one learns to ID a taxon in situations like this, and that could be linked, along with any resources or regional guides that me be helpful for those who want to learn.
In the case of many morels, there is unavoidable subjectivity and judgement that comes from dealing with semi-cryptic species with variable and overlapping morphology. No written guide could possibly explain everything that is required to reach an ID in all situations. Some require practice and experience, and can’t be learned by reading about them. I think that’s fine. An article that clearly states this reality will save you the time of looking for concrete guidance that doesn’t exist, and perhaps point you in the right direction by telling you what traits to focus on as you try to learn to recognize the differences. The guiding principle is that not everything has to be explained, but the limitations need to be directly stated. And if there are taxa where even attempting to write an article doesn’t make sense (because it would take more time to write a guide than would be saved by its existence), then those taxa can go without a guide or have a generic description similar to whatever shows up for them already.
Citation please. The vast majority of specialist IDers – particularly those working on difficult taxa – I encounter on iNat have genuine knowledge of their taxa of interest. Many of them would meet your criteria for “actual, real experts”. Some of them probably would not, because they have no formal training and they may well have gained some meaningful portion of their knowledge “through iNat or buying [and reading] books”. This does not mean that they have not also spent hundreds of hours “poring over literature”, looking at reliable reference images, and “really studying their subject”, or that they do not provide exactly the same amount of care and conscientious attention as a credentialled expert.
Nope. iNat’s democratic ID system means that your IDs are subjected to exactly the same amount of scrutiny as everyone else’s. If you go around making lots of bad or careless IDs, most likely you will start to find that you are getting a lot of disagreements with those IDs. You don’t automatically become a scientist or an expert, on iNat or anywhere else. iNat makes absolutely no claims about the expertise of anyone providing IDs (note the conspicuous lack of any designation on people’s profiles that would suggest expert vs. amateur status). Sometimes people assume that more IDs = more expertise, but such incorrect assumptions are not the fault of the people making the IDs.
Not at all. There is an incentive to agree with IDs provided for one’s own observation in order to get the coveted RG label (and yes, this is an issue, but no easy fixes, see previous forum discussions), but I have seldom found increasing one’s ID statistics to be a major motivation in people who add IDs to observations.
I fully agree with this. What would be easier to implement and would be so useful, would be a list of “useful resources” to ID or dig further in this species.
Right now this information is only available in the forum if asked, so lost for almost all inaturalist.
There’s already Wikipedia, any duplication of information seems redundant and perhaps it would be better to update Wikipedia directly. This being said Wikipedia is against ID tips, but not against anatomical descriptions proper to a species, so maybe there’s a way. But nonetheless, there’s a reason why field guides are region specific and a universal ID advice would have little value at species level.
So, sharing dedicated links seems to be the easiest and cheapest solution to this complex problem.