What do you consider best practice in conflict situations when verifying a taxon?
Case: I find a frog, post photos from all sides and identify it as R. dalmatina. This based on previous experience and case experience when hunting-down the little devil. There is a neighboring taxon R. temporaria which is more common in our region and is not always easy to differentiate.
My 2nd reviewer posts R. temporaria. I could accept a proposal to step back to the genus, if i had evidence the 2nd reviewer has more experience than me. But when searching his account, i see car flattened featureless pieces of meat which he determines to the specimen and finds others which agree. I send my co-reviewer an add-comment to explain himself but get no answer.
Can i block such non-constructive behaviours? How to deal with self-confident ignorance?
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You can @mention a local taxon specialist. Your obs will come up on the filters of taxon specialists. Wait … not everyone is always active on iNat. In time you will get 3 who agree - that is how iNat works, by consensus over time.
You can also opt out of CID for that one obs. Then remember to opt in again when you achieve 3 against 1 for CID and RG.
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You can also ask the reviewer why they think it’s R. temporaria. In situations like yours, I say something like, “Hello! Thanks for your ID. I use (the color of the inside of the back legs, the ridge or lack of ridge down the back, whatever you do use) to tell temporaria from dalmatina. This frog shows (what character you saw), so I labeled it dalmatina. What characters do you use to know it’s temporaria? Thanks!” That is polite and demonstrates you know what you’re talking about.
If you get no response, I make the assumption they are wrong and tag other identifiers, as Diana suggests. Sometimes, that original reviewer will respond and withdraw their ID, but sometimes not.
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I had thousands of disagreements, resolved by dialog or agreed to disagree. Even when I was wrong, I learned something.
There was one like yours: a rare find someone identified as a common species. I tried to engage, listed some features.
After 3 weeks of no replies I just deleted the observation and loaded the photos again.
This is not best practice, but I am allowed to do it. I tag experts for assistance identifying and advice, not for voting. If I want to play games I’ll by a game console.
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Strongly recommended, imo. This avoids conflict altogether.
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In such a case it might be helpful to describe the basis of your ID in your initial post, rather than presenting reasons after someone has given a different ID to convince them to change their mind. That might lead to more careful responses to your observation.
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CID = “Consider it done”?
I still struggle a bit with the jargon.
Do you mean the little flag field visible in the review section of observations in the web version?
I just recently came across it because I mostly worked from the app.
I suppose if i unflag it it will keep the observation as “unresolved”, correct?
CID is Community Identification
Edit to add:
This is the Community ID. You can opt out where it says “Reject?”
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I considered that also but so far found it not really managing the situation.
But what about my other observation of finding that amorphous mass of supposedly amphibian meat identified R. dalmatina reserch grade without evidence of a forensic DNA check?
Seriously, as i am new and still want to learn how collaboration works here, i thougt about making a photo of minced meat out of my fridge, identify it as wild boar and wait what happens. Guess i would not be first with this idea for a social experiment.
I don’t have an ID in my initial post all the time.
Preparing 100 photos for 20-30 observations takes time. Loading photos to iNat, checking times and locations, adding notes takes up the rest of the night. I leave them on high level ID if not obvious.
Some observations take me hours to identify, if I manage at all. I follow the keys, read the treatments, check other resources and other observations.
If there is an ID on my observation by the time I figure it out that’s fine, we can discuss it. Most of the time it works out.
There is enough on my plate, taking photos, loading, identifying my own and other people’s and following up. I don’t have time nor mental capacity to deal with unresponsive misidentifications. I can just leave them on high level or if I care, delete and reload.
Rather not - minced wild boar. It is other identifiers who will be the unhappy target of your social experiment.
Plenty of experimental obs on iNat already ;~))
Is the roadkill within range of that frog sp?
Warning - dead toads - probably lots of potentially doubtful pictures there. But we have teams of Toadnuts out in the rain at night - escorting our leopard toads across the road. So I would trust those IDs.
Ending with a happier toad from the distribution map.
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My comment concerned the one observation you mentioned–a rare find similar to a common species. Not all your observations. Everybody should have time to add comments to a single observation. The OP clearly recognized his situation regarding his frog before he posted. So he could have done the same.
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I’ll second that. I don’t add comments to most of my observations, but if I have one that I know could have a problem, I will add a comment to that one. Exceptional cases require exceptional treatment.
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Hahaha…the unfortunate toads you were showing are reference specimen out of a museum in comparison .
I talk about an amorphous jelly with no recognizable spine, skin or any other feature, which was labeled down to the species level research grade.
My minced meat would still alow a determination as vertebrate.
What i am talking about could also be a piece of deep-fried squid that fell of a truck the day before and was then overrolled by commuter traffic.
Be it as it is, i agree, there is little other option to influence human intelligence than try to give a better example.
What conflict are you trying to resolve? You made an ID, someone disagreed, and then they declined to discuss it.
If you wish to achieve research grade, you can ask others for their input as others have suggested. But not reaching an agreement with someone is not the same as having an unmanaged conflict - the resolution to many conflicts is accepting that two people will not agree.
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A perspective from the opposite side (but not in any way involved with frog ID)
As someone that’s trying (in vain) to even slightly reduce the backlog of tens of thousands of observations of birds that need ID in my home state, I go through the IDs very fast most of the time. In the few years I’ve been trying to do this, the backlog has increased by about 20,000 observations, despite me adding 200,000 identifications, so I don’t often leave comments.
I sometimes disagree with someone’s ID when it’s an unusual species or unexpected location. Sometimes I’m wrong, and went too fast. Sometimes I could be wrong because the photo is ambiguous. Most times no one comments, and that observations sits unnoticed for years. I get a lot of notifications, so sometimes I don’t see when people ask for clarification. Sometimes I see it, but don’t respond, for a myriad of reasons.
My advice is to tag some others to add their own ID if you encounter a situation where you think the person disagreeing with you is wrong. Like it or not, Research Grade is simply a count of which ID has the most votes, nothing more.
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Assuming it’s not identifiable to species (or genus), go up to the most precise level that it is identifiable to. If you can’t tell whether it’s an amphibian or a shrew, then “Animals”. If you can tell it’s a frog, then “Frogs and toads”.
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“Agree to disagree” is OK if it is a conscious process in which you get at least a chance to learn the other position.
The conflict is not so much about the disagreement but to the way how to come to this point. Working together with someone who identifies his own slime to the amphibian species from a picture and deals with foreign observations “on the fly” is something i can hardly accept.
The conflict is to agree upon a scientific method.
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iNat is based on the principle that anyone can add an ID to any observation. Most of the time this works reasonably well – the vast majority of people add IDs conscientiously with at least some knowledge.
Occasionally it happens that an over-enthusiastic user will start adding IDs without sufficient knowledge without realizing why it is a problem, or a user may join at the same time as a friend who uncritically confirms their IDs. It sounds like something like this may be happening here.
In such cases, we are encouraged to assume that people mean well and attempt to engage in discussion with the user about their basis for their IDs. A reasonable portion of users who have been making careless IDs will change their behavior and be more careful about making IDs for others once this is pointed out to them. You can also @ mention other users whose judgment you trust if you suspect that wrong IDs are being made.
If someone is making a lot of heedless and incorrect IDs and is not responsive to feedback, there are mechanisms to notify curators/staff who can take more effective action if needed.
Some of the discussions in previous threads may be useful:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/the-same-individual-keeps-posting-cv-suggested-misidentifications-on-others-observations-what-do-i-do/54450/
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-deal-with-persistent-misidentifiers-i-e-people-not-misidentifications/57542/
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Unfortunately, I just don’t think that’s realistic on a public platform with a large number of users. People will always use things differently, sometimes in ways that conflict with each other. Not everyone will want to sit down with you and reach a consensus on how to do things.
It’s much easier to manage your own expectations than to try and control others’ behavior. Human communication and behavior is also a science.
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