Why would someone collect and pin ALL the butterflies?
1 Like
To be fair, the topic is about behavior that bothers you in “naturalists” (no requirement that they also be iNat users).
4 Likes
Taking only picture of flowers, missing the importance of showing the leaves, and other parts.
7 Likes
After learning how obscure some fungi identifying characteristics can be (and by trying to identify sunflowers, ugh) I just take a million pictures to be safe. Do I need to show the underside of the leaf? Maybe not, but redundancy never hurts!
7 Likes
I would love to write a guide on mushroom ID for iNat. I don’t think there’s a great place to put it where it would easily be seen, though. Michael Kuo really has the best source for introductory mushrooming: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/studying.html#identifying
4 Likes
We have a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKF_pIY0Zpc
You can also make a tutorial here on the forum and link to it when making comments on fungi observations.
3 Likes
I had no idea! What a great video.
1 Like
I’m guilty of that like… 95% of the time I photograph flowers.
3 Likes
It is a huge problem. If Inaturalist has close to 30 million observations what percentage should be attributed to these unnecessary duplicates? My guess is close to 1 million or 3%. At the moment Inaturalist is very slow, I just had to wait 10 mins for a photo to appear! All those unnecessary duplicates require people to ID or agree. These all require computer space and bandwidth. All of those require people to write a note saying that that is very obviously a single individual recognisable by a scar and that those two or sometimes 50 observations should be merged. It is a data problem if a very rare species that is usually solitary has their count increased from 10 to 20 observations by an “over observing” Inaturalist by photographing the clearly same individual at the same time in front of the same background. I stop ID a duplicate like these.
It is time to redefine this policy and make it clearer. What exactly is meant by “the same time”?
4 Likes
This part is right - either do a proper photo (fungus this case) or do not do at all, because it will be useless cluttering of inat in most of cases. I’ve recently been to a lecture by a mycologist about field IDing of mushrooms. Well, sorry to say, but it is necessary to destroy at least one fruit body. Putting a mirror underside will not help to a full view of gills, pores, etc. and the way they change when bruised. Then, you often have to taste and smell it (means breaking), then in many agaricoid species it is necessary to cut the fruitbody along to see (and photograph) colour, its change and the change character (stem, cap, parts, etc.).
6 Likes
Так же не стоит забывать, что повреждение плодового тела не убивает сам гриб. Выше об этом писали) Плюс, если гриб уже “раскрыт” - это может поспособствовать распространению спор.
I see no problem in rare species having 20 obs over 10, what’s wrong with that? No “duplicates” are unnecessary but those that have the same photos of a single individual and were made at the same day, everything else is quite necessary to have, and there’s a huge point to document an individual each day if you can do it, well, that’s the point of iNat existence. Documenting one species multiple times a day shows how many individual there were, and showing the same each day can add information about the life circle, it’s health, etc.
2 Likes
There’s no such thing as cluttering of data, even if it can’t be ided to a species level it still is helpful and provide information, each one of us decided what to post and amount information the person provides also is their choice.
6 Likes
I really hate mansplaining, which is not very common, but often happens in iNat, and is associated with some users. Other users are very gentle, but in others, those attitudes can be noticed. The mansplaining is very common in naturalistic Facebook groups, please dude, stop! Also, I’ve been interpellated by some users who have questioned my IDs, I really do my best, and of course I do mistakes in some identification, I can change it, but there are people who take it very seriously. In fact I’ve been blocked LOL.
4 Likes
also, please use gloves when touching frogs!!! (and other amphibians)
2 Likes
yeah, iNaturalist data already can’t really be used to determine abundance other than in the most vague way, because negative data can’t be collected. It doesn’t harm the data to take too many photos of the same species, and sometimes it can be very valuable as in the case of mapping inavsive plants along a road, etc. I would agree that multiple photos of the same individual or closely clustered population within a few minutes doesn’t add much value to the data. But, I don’t think it’s a measurable reason for iNat being slow, though the devs can correct me if I am wrong. That sort of thing seems to primarily occur with low-volume newbie users and if they stick around they usually stop.
5 Likes
Petty, I know, but I was brought up by a grammar dragon!
One taxon. Multiple taxa.
NEVER taxas, taxons, or one taxa.
I think of it as the correct identification of words :-)
12 Likes
Oh, and along the 'same lines, the mis’us’e of apostrophe’s, especially when its pos’sess’ive!
5 Likes
What’s the reason & kind of gloves are best? I’m far more likely to remember if I know why. I might have picked up amphibians without gloves. I think the only times I’ve picked up amphibians is when there has been a danger of them getting trodden on or run over.
2 Likes