Can a reminder be circulated to members about need to mark cutivated/captive v. wild?

[spiphany]

@beepboop

We can argue all these points all we want on here, but I think what’s being forgotten about is that identification takes time, is done for free, and capitalizes on a lot of expertise that goes unacknowledged and sometimes insulted, which is not even allowed on eBird, but hey let’s laugh at eBird on here. I for one am frustrated and now also disgusted because none of this is a competition, I was simply pointing out issues that should be addressed on this site that I thankfully do not have to put up with elsewhere.

None of us insulted or ridiculed eBird. We have merely pointed out that eBird is based around a very very different approach than iNaturalist. It is not a question of which one is better, but what purpose each serves.

It is also not a question of iNat valuing quantity at the expense of quality.

@beepboop

I’ve just spent weeks on iNaturalist identifying for other people and I won’t be doing it anymore, because it is clear that users don’t want to be bothered learning for themselves, how to adequately use iNaturalist OR how to start identifying anything they’re putting on here. They just want to photo dump and have everybody else do the work into infinity.

I’m sorry you’ve had such a negative experience. I share some of these frustrations, but I think it also needs to be said that there are also plenty of users who do care and are engaged and put work into their observations and think about their IDs; many of these users also give back to the community by helping ID themselves.

Among those who only “photo dump” without seeming to put effort into it, my experience is that some portion of them are users who are struggling with the interface and may not see or understand the communications of the people who make an effort to help them. They may not be aware that the people helping them with IDs are real people who are volunteering their time.

These are genuine problems. I don’t think any of us in the forum would deny this. If you have ideas about how to make things work better, we would love to hear them.

[asteroidowl]

One way it seems that a Czech botanical society has addressed data quality is by having a project for flora of the country, and then the rules for observations/observers to be in that project include that the observer consistently uses captive/cultivated properly. That allows for people more “experty” to review observations, not unlike eBird.

not sure that’s feasible for every plant society, but it gets around the wider issues we have been grappling with.

[cthawley]

Just noting in relation to

@beepboop

Today I’ve finally run into an issue here on iNaturalist where the discussion has been done to absolute death elsewhere on whether Ring-necked Pheasants can be counted in the northeast as being wild. Yet here on iNaturalist today I have somebody trying to argue with me when I marked the bird casual. Which is what it is supposed to be, even based on iNaturalist rules, that this person even linked to, considering Pheasants are released BY HUMANS for hunting where the observation occurred.

that released pheasants generally would be correctly considered wild on iNaturalist assuming that they have had time to move around after the release. This is no different than a released pet which has had a chance to move around after release.

[asteroidowl]

I was wondering about this myself, but kept forgetting to go check. Thanks for adding that.

[sedgequeen]

Released pheasants that won’t successfully breed are “not established” but they are not captive. For iNaturalist purposes, they were wild between the time they’re released and the time they’re shot (if they are).

[samuelsernawills]

You literally posted this in a discussion forum, in the General section

[asteroidowl]

Yeah, life lessons. Was my first forum post and I didn’t quite know what I was doing at the time.

[DianaStuder]

But now you do !

[asteroidowl]

Haha, yes. At least I hope so!!

[upupa-epops]

@DianaStuder

Bird obs get and ID on iNat very quickly. What is left waiting for an ID, is waiting for a reason. The good obs are RG before ‘you’ get a look at them.

At least in North America this is less the case now than it was years ago, presumably for reasons discussed in this thread.

[asteroidowl]

Not seeing this in the site stats. https://www.inaturalist.org/stats

also, as someone who goes through the Unknowns, I have yet to see a bird photo. Usually there are recordings only.