I copypasta to Google which is kinder. Then come back to iNat with typo-free correct spelling. One wrong letter, and iNat says flatly Never Heard of It. Focuses my mind on learning the names.
2 Likes
Is there an epistemologist in the house? I know there are entomologists …
3 Likes
I took a few epistemology courses, but I’m not sure if that’s a good way to understand the topic.
1 Like
Much prefer, that if I am not certain, to just identify at genus and make a comment to what I think it may be. Too often I get someone in America, for example, making an ID on an Australian observation and the ID they give is for a species that doesn’t even occur in Australia. This is frustrating and just bad science. Then someone else wanting to get their ID numbers up confirms the ID without any knowledge whatsoever.
Too often, also, if you give an ID - someone will blindly just follow it and - you end up with a Research Grade observation. On the other hand - if you are fairly certain, then provide an ID.
It is a pity, in some ways, that iNaturalist cites the number of IDs publicly. Some people just want to get a high number. I recently had an example of someone going through hundreds of my records - common taxa like Elephants - and adding an ID to something that already had 7 or 8 IDs - why? - there is no value in that.
2 Likes
Why do you assume that is their motivation? Why do you assume they have no knowledge whatsoever? Being wrong doesn’t necessarily indicate ignorance. Sometimes it is just an error.
This topic has been discussed before. There are lots of good reasons. https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-do-some-observation-receive-plenty-of-agreeing-ids/37287/30
1 Like
I rather think that naturalists/scientists/biologists a century ago might well have had these same conversations. When the variability of human minds tries to map the variability of living organisms onto a system, even a good system, much less a system in uproar (think Fungi), of course there won’t be one-to-one mapping. We all just do our humble best and somehow stumble onward.
4 Likes
Too many times I have identified at genus, only to have it revert to family later on because the genus was split. Whereas if it was identified to the species I think it may be, the genus split would simply update its name to the new genus. One of these two scenarios is a step backwards, the other is a parallel move.
1 Like
One of these days I have to go through the lovebug species Plecia nearctica and send all of the asian records back up to genus as this species is exclusive to the Americas. Probably one person selected it from the dropdown and someone else sent it to RG and now there are dozens of incorrect records.
I think part of the problem might be that certain areas are just lacking in Computer Vision infrastructure, combined with people picking the top result from the AI not realizing it can be inaccurate. From there it becomes a feedback loop of “Well, there is a RG observation from this area so my observation must be this species too!” and it spreads like wildfire.
3 Likes
I might be wrong here but I believe the way to get a genus to pop up in the list is for it to have enough RG observations at least at the genus level. The more species from that genus are in the computer model the more likely it is to show up when observed.
1 Like
Always be certain, even if you feel it’s not the right ID. Most of the time you’re more correct than you think, and if you’re not someone will come along and correct
2 Likes
please don’t ID as that. iNat expects you to be able to explain convincingly ‘why you said it is that taxon - I can see the distinguishing purple striped toenails’ Wait that has toes?!
It only takes one (kind or hopeful) person to agree
And it is Research Grade. Goes to GBIF.
And then some poor sod (busy busy taxon specialist) has to plough thru ALL the IDs at that taxon to tease out - yes no maybe ooh that one is …
4 Likes
As dianastuder said above, you should only ID to the level that you are certain of. Maybe this isn’t so much of a problem for groups with large amounts of IDers, like birds and butterflies, but when you can count the number of IDers for a group on one hand, or there isn’t an expert for a group at all, your ID becomes extremely influential and can have negative impacts on the quality of data on this site if incorrect.
3 Likes
Personally, I do not really like to identify, due to the fact that people often immediately agree (without understanding anything at all) and the observation becomes scientific. I don’t want my mistakes to spoil the scientific data later.
I can understand that. But if everyone was thinking like this, we’d only have the experts identifying, probably meaning 90% less IDs. Take the imposter syndrome into account (experts wondering if they really are experts, because after all there’s always one person knowing even more) and we might get 95% less. The site would be pretty much dead.
6 Likes
At least according to my understanding, an observation doesn’t even need to be RG to show up on the map/be included in nearby observations. I’ve definitely run into situations where I was looking at the Suggestions tab to cross-check the possibilities and have gotten distracted by a suggested species that is totally out of range. Then I usually wind up going to the species map and checking all the seemingly out-of-range observations instead of continuing to ID whatever I was originally working on :/
1 Like
iNat only needs. One ID. On one obs. That is the bar set as low as it can go.
‘Seen nearby’. Not really.
I’m glad you said it. Even though we like to leave comments on Unknowns to the effect that “adding even a very broad ID will increase the linkelihood that an expert will see it,” realistically, we can’t expect an “expert” to see every observation of a taxon that may have thousands of observations. We have to accept that most IDs are going to come from naturalists who might know a fair amount, but would not be considered experts. Anyone making use of citizen science data – no matter the source or platform – has to account for that.
4 Likes
This has bothered me too. Is there any chance of maps being changed to, say, only show research grade observations? Or possibly this has already been suggested and considered?
1 Like
Have a look in the feature requests?
I would have expected, if it is triggered by a single obs, that it would at least be CID and Research Grade.
Not, maybe this, but maybe not??
We did get the default for taxon pictures reset, so that is now Research Grade. Unless you choose to change it.
You can filter for that, no?
Here is one I just ran for Membracis mexicana (which I commonly see in my garden) filtered to only show RG: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&quality_grade=research&subview=map&taxon_id=332204
Or do you mean the default map being changed? Sorry if I have misunderstood (commonly the case).