I noticed the same problem with Human Papillomavirus. There are several genera with that common name, but on iNat, using that common name makes it Genus Alphapapillomavirus. So then, inevitably someone has to send it back to Family Firstpapillomavirinae, which I doubt any layperson would have thought of.
I disagree with this idea. As was discussed earlier with the sedges, maybe the previous people know a way to identify it that the dissenter does not know. Why should someone who lacks a key piece of knowledge have that kind of power over people who have it?
Fine if that was really how it worked. But as currently done, it does in fact go as āI canāt, so you canāt either.ā
Yes. In the new thread that just got merged with this one, that is the crux of the problem.
charlie would still have the option of opting out of community ID, which would keep it at species level. Or, if he gives more context in a comment then thereās a good chance identifiers will withdraw their IDs.
I think regular identifers should know that charlie, for example, is experienced with plant ID and probably knows information about the plant that isnāt presented in the observation and would pass over the observation or add a āgreen button disagreementā.
However, if an identifier sees an observation identified as the same species, but with the computer vision symbol and from a user with no profile description and only a few observations, they can probably assume that the observer has no idea how to identify sedges and just chose the CV suggestion. Thereās a wide grey area between and thereās been lots of discussion on how to deal with that.
Thereās a major bias for newer observers and even more experienced ones to identify to species level when thatās often not appropriate. The orange button is the best way to address that false precision, but identifiers have a responsibility to follow up if it turns out the species ID was realistic.
It annoys me the other way round. If I identify a species within someone elseās suggestion of a genus or family, etc., why does it say I ādisagreeā when I am actually agreeing!
You will be on a different branch of the taxonomy for this to happen. Open the species page (in a seperate browser maybe) and at the top of the page click the three dots in the middle of the taxonomy branch list, and see if the other identifiers genus or family is an ancestor of your species level IDā¦ If it is, then please do give a screenshot or link so we can check it out!
The title of this Feature Request fits what Iāve been thinking about lately. Iām been noticing observations where a person has disagreed with a species ID of a flowering plant by adding an ID of āPlants.ā The person probably did not intend to disagree that the organism is a flowering plant, because the wording that results is to the effect that there was a disagreement with the species. This seems to then require 2 more identifiers to get the community taxon back to āflowering plants.ā So looking through this topic, I see wording in @loarieās June 2019 post, under āBranch Disagreementā which (in an example involving lady beetles) says āI disagree that this is Asian Lady Beetle and all taxa on the branch between Asian Lady Beetle and the taxon I have proposed,ā which seems to me much more accurate. This topic is still open, so Iām here to ask whether there is a chance of this type of language being adopted on the identifications. I have to admit I didnāt re-read this entire discussion.
In PNW USA Bombus, we have two veery similar species, Bombus vosnesenskii and Bombus caliginosus. In photos you can tell them apart only if you can compare the malar space and/or see some yellow hairs underneath the abdomen. In our Washington Native Bee Society Project we decided to move any B. vos back to Subgenus Pyrobombus that did not show underneath the abdomen. Then one of our members made a fantastic Pyrbombus Observation Field which includes that pair and many other Pyrobombus which can mimic one another. As B. vos is oue most spotted species (1338 counted by Nov 2021) it has been a very big pain to write to each person to explain that yes their ID is probably correct by because of the very similar B. caliginosus we would appreciate them using the Observation Field and the Pyrobombus Subgenus. We hope that eventually the Computer Vision will be able to tell the difference and people have been great about taking this one - but it is a real pain to write over and over and over and overā¦
Iād argue maybe we shouldnāt be doing this at all. If the species canāt be told apart is it worth disrupting the database and causing all these problems? Youāll never be able to keep a scientifically valid bombus vos on iNat since the species can barely ever be identified in here.
Of course we shouldnāt just live species out because someone canāt id it? It is an identifiable species, how is it ācanāt be told apartā? By that logic we shouldnāt check any Bombus sp. ids at all as most of them require many shots of many parts and cv always tells you itās terrestis if itās anything like subg. Bombus. Problem is in cv use, not taxa. We have complexes on iNat right for that, and subg. id is a good one.
hmm, that isnāt what i said at all. i said maybe we shouldnāt be downgrading them if āweā canāt tell, like someone should only downgrade if they think the ID is wrong, not if they donāt know. I just feel like it breaks a bunch of the site without offering any clear benefit ig the species can barely ever be gold apart. But, itās fine to disagree, per usual my opinion is probably not the majority one. Just putting it out there. I am not speaking to any official iNat policy as a moderator.
(I also think the observer should be probably knocking back to subgenus after being presented with this evidence, if they arenāt sure)
If user saw features not seen on photos, then they should write them down so others will see them, or write after that id, right? It doesnāt break anything to clear up mess, bumblebee species are not some microspecies and are identifiable, itās people who make one shot of insect and think itās enough for species id, itās perfectly okay if it will stay at higher level.
People donāt change ids even when you tell them thereās no way to id species from that single pic of wrong for id angle, they donāt care, e.g. Metellina segmentata observations with dorsal photos when you canāt id species from the back, people use cv, I bet they didnāt know genus name before that, thus donāt know how to id the species, or theyād do better pics! Same with tons of other species, e.g. Flammulina species are idiable only with spores, but general public knows about one species, you canāt guess species from general appearance, so nobody knows what this specimen is, so it should be at genus level, or Alchemilla sp. where cv knows only one, but species id requires flowers?
Itās iNat design flaw, ofc people shouldnāt use disagreement that way, but users usually too new to know or care about how ids should be done, so whatās the difference if thereās a disagreement + āno it canāt be betterā = RG genus or believing observer will answer you one day? I see such observations all the time, months or years after comment of ider, itās not working.
I guess i donāt see either approach as working very well, it is true that people often donāt actively curate their observations, and i donāt know if that can be improved. But conversely i see people going on sprees of knocking things back to higher taxonomic levels and just sweep through taxa or through all the observations of an individual user, knocking back to casual or higher taxonomic level things that many other people could identify and also disenchanging the community. Then some of them reject community ID and itās all for nothing anyway. And, as with other stuff, i donāt feel like iNat is hitting the balance as well as it could be, but of course we donāt all agree on where the balance should lie.
I agree thereāre better ways to spend time, but if youāre actually working on particular taxon, it makes sense to check all the observations of it, I also against making things casual as some iders do, saying casual are observations too, when actually theyāre just gone for iNat after that, so there always should be a golden middle.
i actually think it would be neat to find a way to track how many times something was reviewed, and if like 20 people have reviewed something and hit R with no ID, bumping it into a different category ādifficult, requires expert or else can not be ndentifiedā that could be treated differently. At least have another step before we automatically throw them into the casual or coasre ID pit. I recently had a case where one person identified stuff to species that should really be to genus, and another user went through a ton of their observations and used the ācan not be identified furtherā button plus a very coarse ID to āvascular plantsā to knock a bunch of stuff into casual status. Most of them were identifiable to genus or at least family. I went through and identified them as such but if i hadnāt specifically noticed the issue theyād probably be lost forever. Thatās the thing. Yes, sometimes photos are way insufficient for an ID an we shouldnāt just leave them in Needs Id to get milled over by multiple people wasting everyoneās time. But i also think people get very overactive with saying things arenāt identifiable. To be blunt, i am really good at identifying plants by texture and slight color variations to the point lots of people have commented on it. (my āplant synesthesia thingā noted in the neurodiversity thread even works somewhat for photos). So i find all kinds of stuff knocked back to high taxonomic levels that I am totally confident in what it is. That doesnāt mean i donāt make mistakes too of courseā¦ but i just feel like people are too overactive with this stuff and it results in a big loss of good data. Maybe bees were a bad place for me to try to make this point. Iāve got no bee synesthesia
Oh, I get you, itās totally a thing, thereās so much of human factor on iNat there should be a separate scientific paper just on how a person affects what is happening here.)
This example makes me curious how you do ID Metellina species. I have several observations of the genus, which have not been IDed further, and most if not all of my photos are dorsal. Is there a different angle that could provide enough information for a species ID?
I donāt know about American species, but as general rule spiders require genital-related organs, so epigyne for females and palps for males, we have two Metellina species here, females are harder to id from photos, mostly we can seen amount of black in lines on epigyne, males are easier, you need lateral shot to see shape of one of appendages, which is forked in one species and lack the fork in another, also first has long hairs on tarsus. https://wiki.arages.de/index.php?title=Metellina_segmentata#/media/Datei:Metellina_mengei_M_segmentata_male_bein_I_HLovbrekke.jpg And a good website on European spiders, though distribution is not always up to date. https://araneae.nmbe.ch/data/1217 There must be some key for US spiders or at least website with full info, so you can find out which species you have and what features are unique for them.
I like to write notes to people. It does take time, but I am. hoping to encourage new bee people to continue to watch for them and take better photos. Our Washington Native Bee Society project has grown to over 15,000 native bee observations in barely a year so it seems to be gathering steam. If we can teach people what the differences are, they seem to be willing to do the 2-species observation. We are also hoping they learn to ID a few more bees and then a few more and grow this up like birding, etc.
Thanks all for the comments.
Lisa
