I do think there should be a way for someone who has marked an observation as “Reviewed” to be aware of significant changes, but, given the already long list of Feature Requests, it would probably be worthwhile for us to identify an acceptable workaround in the meantime.
You say:
But what if i don’t want to give an ID to everything i see? This is a personal preference of mine but i only give IDs when the community taxon can be improved to a finer level or if it is blatantly wrong- i don’t normally give agreeing IDs to observations that already have correct IDs because i don’t believe i should waste my time repeating correct information that others have already given (unless someone tags me for my opinion; again, a personal preference)
It is absolutely up to you to decide what you want to ID and how you want to use iNat. But, considering the reasons you provide, I would suggest that adding agreeing IDs could save you time and improve your visibility into subsequent ID changes.
Let’s say you’re using the Identify interface to review a bunch of butterfly observations (maybe all Papilionoidea added in the past 7 days within a specific place). Maybe you checked the options to include both RG and Needs ID observations, so that you can correct any existing IDs that might be wrong. As you navigate through those observations, you’ll come across plenty that are already at RG and which your experience tells you have the correct ID. My understanding is that right now, you would tap R or click the “Reviewed” box and move to the next. Instead, you can tap A or click the Agree button, which will do 3 things: add a new ID listed under your name based on the current community ID, mark the observation as reviewed, and add the observation to your Follow list.
With the above workflow, there is no additional effort, you gain the benefit that the Follow functionality can notify you of future ID changes, and you’ve added more confidence to that community ID.
If someone later came and added an incorrect ID, there’s a chance that your ID would mean the community ID stays unchanged. Whether or not that later ID changes the community ID, you’ll get a notification and can decide whether/how to act. There could be quite a few times when the new ID is wrong, and there will likely also be a few when the new ID is worth considering. Those are both things I want to know for the taxa I focus on.
I do understand that this approach requires one to slightly change the personal meaning of “Reviewed” vs. “ID’ed”, but it doesn’t appear to involve extra effort, and the effects all appear to be beneficial.
