Blurry or distant observations

[jnstuart]

@botswanabugs

With aging, failing eyesight, every thing is blurred anyway !
Get used to fuzzy images ! Good practice for old age !

That made me laugh. But just a little, since I’m already there.

[sunguramy]

I IDd a bunch of sandhill cranes last winter even though blurry and not that IDable to me typically because i k ow the exact spot the photos were taken…at a wildlife preserve…that is for sandhills…at that time of year. And i knew they were there having been there myself. I left why I ID as I did in the comments to hopefully disuade anyone from kicking it back

[nathantaylor]

I want to apologize for linking to the specific observation. My intention was not to shame, but simply to provide evidence for why it’s important that certain observation don’t become research grade. With as much as researchers are using iNaturalist data in scientific research, it becomes very, very important to be able to curate this data effectively. While I know the stated purpose of iNaturalist, this doesn’t change the fact that iNaturalist uses the term “research grade” and that these observations are uploaded to GBIF. If this weren’t the case, then it wouldn’t matter quite so much, but that’s also what makes iNaturalist special. However, this means we have to deal with these cases instead of ignoring the problem.

The above answers this question:

@jasonhernandez74

If the observer won’t put in an effort, why should I?

The reason I put in the effort is so that a person in the future doesn’t have to deal with it.

[nathantaylor]

Identifiability of observations

@charlie

Also… for some species i’d be able to identify something of that blurriness yes. Like the white pine i mentioned earlier. Not that particular species, but maybe someone could. The observer thought they could.

@charlie Under that logic, no observations should be made casual. And, there is some context here you are unaware of which I will not explain to avoid making the mistake in my original reply. Also, spurges are not pines.

When I evaluate whether to mark an observation as casual, I use three criteria:

1. Can I ID it based on my current skill level?
2. Is there enough information that I could conceivably think that I could ID it if I dedicated more time to learning the study system?
3. Based on the identifications submitted by the observer, am I confident that the observer can ID the organism correctly?

If I answer yes to any of the above, I don’t make it casual. This is why it is so frustrating when someone resists. Do I always handle it the best way, no, but it takes a lot for me to decide that an observation should be casual.

@tonyrebelo

Far more commonly the issue with identification is that for many organisms more than one photo, or a particular view is needed to see the diagnostic features.

This is true for Euphorbia as well, but I usually hold out hope that it’s a limitation of my resources. I’ve specifically developed ways of using heteroblasty to ID Euphorbias in photographs to get around this issue. However, there are some that I have no hope for and while I don’t know where that line is, I know when the line has been crossed so far that no one should provide a species-level ID.

[nathantaylor]

Techniques for dealing with low quality observations

@sedgequeen

Maybe we should institute some kind of statute of limitations for observations? After being posted for five years, say, without an identification, observations become “casual.” Or a voting system? After 4 observers mark the observation as unidentifiable it becomes “casual”?

@sedgequeen

Possibly a time after which observations can be voted off the island, so to speak, but not a deadline.

I agree, the statute of limitation idea originally proposed wouldn’t work too well, but I appreciate the though put into it and think we should continue to seek solutions here. Another idea would be to have a button to seek support on a particular observation to help people find observations that are tied for whether they should be treated as casual or not. While in this limbo, I think the observations should be treated perpetually as needs ID (or preferably as another category: status unclear) and not be allowed to change to research grade or casual until the vote is resolved.

[pholroyd]

Reading this thread and thinking about it from a data science perspective, the large corpus of images that linger in “needs id” for a long time (whether fuzzy photos or great photos that cannot be identified to species) provides a large and really interesting training set for image analysis to examine when trained humans can’t recognize something.

[nathantaylor]

Interacting with observers

@jamesjarrett00

Some folks can’t afford a great camera, I think people on here forget that.

Doesn’t take a good camera to make a good observation. Folks post identifiable observations with crappy cameras all the time.

@jnstuart

I’ve got a lot of terrible photos, many that are old slides, that I’ll never post on iNat even if they are the only examples I have of particular organisms. I’m my own worst critic of my photos.

One way to deal with this would be to upload them and mark them as casual. That way, if someone wants to hunt through the casual observations to find rare gems, they could. I do this occasionally with the Euphorbias and there’s sometimes one or two that were erroneously marked as cultivated by someone who thought all their plant observations should be marked cultivated.

[fffffffff]

Thing is you can’t separate “can’t be ided by anyone” and “no expert to check an id”, the obvious example is of course all the tropical species that are not ided or not even known to science yet, but also in big cities there’re groups that need a local expert to check ids added by others or add first species ids, those photos won’t help your goal, because they’re as good as any other photo, or as bad, because good observation for non-charismatic species has many photos from different angles, and one is not enough.

[adinie]

Sometimes it is just a pity if interesting species are too blurry, tiny or with very bad colors. If its newcomers, I try to encourage them to get closer, use faster shutter speed, another light source
and other suggestions. I am always happy if I see those observers improve their photos. However in stead of criticizing observers down to ground, we all should be helpful and remember that we also once started to learn.

[charlie]

@nathantaylor

@charlie Under that logic, no observations should be made casual. And, there is some context here you are unaware of which I will not explain to avoid making the mistake in my original reply. Spurges are not pines.

I’m aware of the context and that spurges are different from pines. This thread is broader than being about one spurge observation. I do think the bar for making something casual should be pretty high, but as i said before, i dont have an issue with you marking that linked one one as no further ID needed.

[lordcaravan]

What about video?

This is somewhat avian-centric…

and I don’t think this is ultimate the most “data friendly” solution, but when I am in the field sometimes I have awesome luck if I try to simply make a video with my phone of a perching bird, 9/10 the specimen will begin or continue calling, leading to an increased likelihood of a positive ID (for me and my team, your results may vary), even if the video is crap and you can’t actually see the bird, you can tell I was on site, I did hear a bird, and it happened when the phone recorded the video, that’s more accurate that most of our field observations recorded by hand or to eBird, which lack a timestamp, or until a photo is attached, any reasonable proof other than trust.

but I think this could be a step above or aside from just visual ID, or sound ID, because even if you cant photograph the exact specimen, with a video, you could illustrate the context and your proximity to the species.

A great example of this, would be that many antpitta species are very easy to hear, but can be extremely difficult or impossible to actually see, under usual circumstances.

[fffffffff]

Audio is enough, you can add a screenshot from video too, or gbif, but if it’s not idable from audio alone, those are of little help.

[Kimbrown]

Education is always helpful. I use inat with my kids in the classroom and we spend a couple of days learning how to take high quality photos (close up, good lighting multiple perspectives, focused…). It really helps a lot. Inat has a YouTube tutorial on taking good observation photos. Maybe it is just a matter of sharing the link with the user to help them in their next observations. Here is the link:
https://youtu.be/zmGkRNnelfU

[jamesjarrett00]

You missed my point. Yes good pictures can come from a cheaper camera, but not always. My camera, which wasn’t cheap by my standards but is likely cheap by some standards doesn’t give great shots in low light and at a distance. Doesn’t mean I should not try. My point was people of all kinds are using this space. And that giving them a hard time because they do not meet your standard is not right. Remember that an individuals observations are, 1st and foremost, theirs. To use as they see fit. Yes there needs to be community standards to follow but if you don’t like someone’s observation that doesn’t meet your standard, you can always skip it.

[jasonhernandez74]

@vreinkymov

Blocking a user is pretty extreme and affects their ability to interact with your observations

Right, and the use case I was discussing doesn’t warrant that. I just wanted not to see their observations when I work on that location; I don’t need to prevent any and all interaction.

Looks like I’ll have to remember to use the URL string when working on that location.

@DanielAustin

A better example might be a photo of you as a child admiring a butterfly sunbathing on a garden wall. So long as the butterfly is visible enough in the shot to be identifiable, it’s a valid and useful observation to upload in my view.

That’s why it isn’t a better example, because my point was that not every old photograph with an incidental organism has an identifiable organism. Maybe a better example would be a group of siblings in fall, throwing wads of leaves at each other – but the picture was taken from too far away to see anything about the shape or form of the leaves. You could say “Dicots,” I suppose…

[DianaStuder]

Yesterday - what is this tree? and I politely moved on.

Nice picture of an outdoor restaurant, focused on the furniture.
With some blurry green leaves in the foreground. Trees are difficult anyway.

[samuelsernawills]

Absolutely

[andrewtree]

Thanks for the link, it will be a useful, and hopefully effective, addition to the prepared texts that I share when appropriate. I wish there were a way that all new users could have that initial education.

[jnstuart]

@nathantaylor

@jasonhernandez74

If the observer won’t put in an effort, why should I?

The reason I put in the effort is so that a person in the future doesn’t have to deal with it.

An important but thankless job … although I’ll thank you for it. I suppose one of my personal goals on this site is to never submit a record that requires someone else to clean up after me.

[anon93074988]

My process for dealing with such observations:

1. Roll eyes.
2. Click ‘Reviewed’.
3. Move on.