Changes to the Agree button/functionality and addition of Markdown in comments and ID Remarks

News and Updates
45

Maybe how one thinks about this issue depends a lot on what kind of species are observed or IDed?

I have a lot of not so easy to identify observations. Sometimes they have RG because someone agreed, but I am still not so sure, because maybe the second identifier is quite new to iNat or appears to be not so reliable overall. In those cases, I do appreciate the confirmation on someone, who knows his/her field. Just two IDs can be very wobbly… it just needs someone to suggest an ID and the original poster to agree with this. Something I find a lot when IDing spiders for example… it´s a lucky guess in half of the cases maybe, but I think my agreement in those cases can solidify the ID. Same for other experts in their fields of course.

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46

I would add to this that there are seemingly better approaches to tackling these problems, if they genuinely are an issue. I would much rather see an approach that is targeted at these users (e.g., somehow limiting their ability to use the agree button or identify at all if their account is flagged as problematic, either manually or by an algorithm), or fixing or removing the leaderboards.

This is a really unfortunate change that causes a loss of functionality for many very active and dedicated users. I have submitted a feature request to “undo” this change that is awaiting approval.

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47

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea! IDing a RG observation shouldn’t count for additional IDs; that might remove some of the competitive aspect.

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48

And this would target the problem itself, rather than degrading functionality for all users.

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49

A feature request? Please link. I would vote for it faster than a heartbeat :wink: EDIT: ah, waiting for approval. Will be waiting patiently! :-)

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54

One of the most useful reasons for adding additional “agrees” on RG observations has not been mentioned yet: it allows you to mark the observation as reviewed but still receive notifications if someone comes through later and adds an incorrect ID.

For example: Two observers have identified an observation as Taxon A, so it reaches RG. If I add a third Taxon A identification, I will now receive a notification if someone comes through a year later and adds an incorrect Taxon B identification.

If I don’t add that agreeing identification and just mark the observation as reviewed, I have effectively removed myself from having any way to ever see that record again if it incorrectly loses RG or reaches RG for the wrong species. In the latter case, I could only find that record by going through all of my reviewed records which would be hunting needles in haystacks.

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55

I got back to @fogartyf individually as well, but I didn’t approve the request because a) this functionality is still less than 24 hours old and b) there are already discussions here and on the blog post; creating another discussion would not be helpful. If you have feedback or ideas about this functionality, you can leave it here, and please try to be specific.

Also, please abide by the guidelines of the forum. If you don’t have anything constructive to say but want to agree with someone, you can just use the like button. Thanks!

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56

I guess I’m more rapid at the keyboard than some. It wouldn’t double my time, I’m sure. :-) I do spend a lot of time at the keyboard and use autofill a lot on multiple platforms so perhaps I’m more comfortable with it.

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59

While it’s not a bug, if it was an imaginary problem then these discussions wouldn’t have happened, totalling ~60 messages of discussion with contributors generally in consensus as far as I can tell.

Given the backlash I wonder if it would be better to deal with people who do mass/spam agreeing IDs on an individual basis, except that it’s really difficult to tell until they’ve already affected thousands of observations.

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60

I have become very dis-illusioned with iNat over the last year, partly external due to the disappointing celebrations of Banks and Solander in October (from a biodiversity awareness perspective) and impact of covid (easing of resource management controls likely to wipe out a katipo colony I have been advocating on), but also directly due to the lack of a solution, despite an early indication something was going to be done, to fix the explicit disagreement dialog wording. And yet I’m still so addicted to iNat that I can’t go a day without popping in to see what cool stuff is being seen… and checking the forum kinda has become part of that ritual, although I don’t waste my time engaging as much as I did…

But when I did engage, there was a discussion around these problematic agree buttons. It was explored from many angles and points of view, some of which I agreed with and some I didn’t… but I felt reasonably sure that it was clearly identified and widely understood that the problem with them was that NEW and INEXPERIENCED users were using it as a “like” button. Someone IDs and then someone agrees (when they just mean “thank you”) and then the observation becomes RG and it drops out of the Needs ID pool, making it invisible to a large number of identifiers who might be able to weigh in where an ID might need attention.

This change is not effective. The source of the problem still exists, and the limitation impacts heavily on those that are likely to be working on reviewing those RG observations. If there are two or more of us that work on a particular branch (in my case Araneae), then we look at who else has weighed in with an ID. I have a “taglist” made up of those identifiers that I know are regularly active or knowledgeable, and even just “interested”, and I copy in that taglist on any observation of outstanding interest. I don’t do so when I see that they have all already chipped in with an ID! You can’t tell if an observation has been marked reviewed by someone else… but you CAN see if they have made an ID. Some people I know are learning a particular group, and I look closely to make sure they have checked for pustules, or I might add comments knowing that they missed them etc. Their having “put their stamp” on the observation is a valuable part of the process, whether it be the first ID, 2nd… or 20th… and if the 21st ID is someone just bolstering their be id stats, who cares? We soon get to recognise that behaviour for what it is, and it doesn’t really hurt anyone! Well, perhaps those that themselves are competing for top spot! This change is counter productive (from a logical standpoint, but I guess in time we’ll see where the actual impact goes…)

For me, the best implementation of this would have been to get rid of ALL agree buttons from the identify thumbnail page (keep them in the modal, where a better view of what you are agreeing to is seen). And PERHAPS remove the agree button when there is only one ID (the first confirmation should be a considered “with some effort” one, rather than a “far too easy click without thinking”)

I should think that by the time I have “given this change a chance”, I will have overcome the last vestiges of my iNat addiction… not “the cure” I was hoping for this year…

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61

I’m not happy with this change, but it might be that I just need to figure out a different work flow for what I do.

I try to review all of the fishes posted to iNat. My area of expertise is tropical reef fishes, which seem to be somewhere around 25% of the fish posted, but since they span many families and parts of the world, I have to review all of the fish to find them. [It’s off topic for this, but if we had ocean basins as locations in addition to countries, I wouldn’t have to search the entire world.]

I try to review all of the fishes because every day there are a couple of mistaken IDs of things that clearly aren’t fish, and we get occasional batches of poorly identified observations where a friend immediately confirms all of the IDs regardless of how incorrect they are. There are a couple of other people who seem to also do this same thing nearly every day. I tend to agree to observations that are already research grade mainly to track what I have looked at. I may be one of the people that some think agree too often, but if that’s the case, no one has ever said anything to me about it.

Today I tried doing this marking those as “reviewed” instead. And discovered that I then several times accidentally just reviewed observations that weren’t already research grade that I should have agreed with. Now doing this right will require more thought, as there are more options. I’m debating if it’s worth learning a new way to do this, or give up on continuing to review fishes, and just let the bad IDs stay.

-Mark

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62

Maybe I am not fully understanding but wouldn’t a quick fix to this be to use the Identify page to look at the needs ID ones, and then the Explore page filtered to RG : https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&quality_grade=research&subview=grid&taxon_id=47178 for the ones already at RG. The interfaces even look different as a mental reminder.

63

Tony has reached out and stated that this is not a concrete change and that Staff is considering all the thoughts of us naturalists. :-) I have my hopes up that something better will be implemented, so don’t quit on identifying, please! Perhaps take a break until a conclusion is reached? :-)

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64

Just to clarify, like pretty much any functionality, Constructive feedback is welcome and the functionality is subject to change.

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65

As a relatively active identifier (who follows many other observers and subscribes to many different taxa and places), I have spent today watching to see how the loss of the Agree button impacts my workflow and habits. The actual impact of the button change is less than I might have predicted. I still add some agreements (manually) to RG observations, when it feels important to do so, but mostly I just skip over more RG observations than I used to. If this leaves me a little more time to review other observations that Need ID, maybe that’s a good thing.

However, after a day of working in this new system, I do find that my entire outlook on iNaturalist has changed, not so much because of the change in mechanics, but because I now understand better what iNat management considers to be important. I have been pondering Ken-ichi’s comment (#14 in the string of comments under his original blog post), that what he values is not the number of IDs, but the number of improving IDs that one makes within a taxon. Probably I should have realized this earlier. If I were to take this new understanding to its logical extreme (which I probably won’t), it would mean that:

  • I should spend more time out in the field making new observations, and less time reviewing other people’s observations. When I submit my own observation, I always get an “Improving” for my own ID, whereas when I confirm someone else’s ID on their observation, I am not “Improving” anything.
  • Never mind those 2nd, 3rd, or 4th agreements. Adding even the first agreeing ID, the one that moves an observation to RG, is not valued. Better to spend time finding observations with mistaken IDs and correcting them, or moving something from “Unknown” to “Insect” or from Family to Genus, than spend time confirming correct IDs.

I’m still processing this change of world view, and feel a bit unsettled. Even if the Agree button eventually gets restored, I probably won’t go back to exacctly the way I was doing things before, because now I realize that I could be doing more valuable work in a different way.

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66

from a recent example posted:

image

My understanding:

Explicit disagreement should only be undertaken when there is evidence that it is not that species, or when the challenged identifier is not responsive on the matter and there would be general concensus amongst the active community to “bump” the observation back.

Here we can’t tell what the situation is. Does the challenger see evidence to support it NOT being that species? The explicit disagreement without any sort of context would imply so, however I think it is considerate to give an indication as to why one is explicitly disagreeing. But I have done so myself from time to time, when I just think heck, I can’t be bothered explaining this for the 100th time… especially when I know there are 4 or 5 other active identifiers that are going to review this after me and will in all likelihood (ie from past experience) put the same ID as myself. In other words, that 5 of us are putting this ID is as good an explanation as any I could make with words… and if actual learning is wanted, they can ask and I (or one of the other reviewers) will give a friendly enough explanation.

Let’s assume that it is a simple case of “not enough evidence to support the finer ID”. Let’s assume also that the observer and/or first identifier didn’t see or take into account any other information as a basis for their ID, remembering that observers can see or hear or experience other forms of evidence than is expressed in the photo. Let’s also assume that …

… actually, let’s just forget all of the issues related to explicit disagreements, and focus on the “relevant to this thread” issue of what the Agree buttons are now doing… Someone has explicitly disagreed with the finer species level ID (for whatever their reason), and that first and challenged finer ID has an available Agree button while the subsequent and “in response” explicit disagreement does not. The observation is bumped back to genus, goes back into the Needs ID pool where there is the high chance of new and inexperienced users continuing to exhibit the same problematic “click the Agree because I like the ID, am thankful for the ID, or just plain want the number in my stats to be bigger” behaviour. The challenger will presumably get notifications of differing subsequent IDs, so will hopefully get to re-weigh back in with a more assertive (ie with reason via comment) position.

1 Like
67

Another idea: have leader boards display percentage of each ID type. And differentiate agreement of a RG observation from an agreement that boosts something to RG. That way if someone really only verifies easy RG observations of mallards or whatever it’s really evident on there and they look absurd

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68

Just got one of these on one of my observations. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/53360773

69

first, i want to thank identifiers for identifying. part of the magic of iNaturalist is that the observation you submit might be identified by any one of 150,000 people from all around the world, many of whom are the best at what they do, and who all do it on a voluntary basis. thanks for your hard work.

i’ve done around 5000 identifications for others. so i don’t do anywhere near the volume of identifications that many others do. i personally don’t imagine that i’ll feel much of an impact to my own workflow because of the loss of an Agree button in some cases, but i can calculate how an extra 2 seconds each over, say, 10000 identifications can easily translate to an extra 5 and a half hours, and i can sympathize with what that means for super identifiers.

i get a feeling that many identifiers already feel overwhelmed with the volume of observations that are out there to identify. i admire the dedication to a cause and personal responsibility to take on the task of overseeing an entire taxon or an entire place. but in the grand scheme of things, with the amount of observations growing as fast as it is, i think that taking on that kind of personal burden will become untenable at some point, even if the Agree button is preserved. if you’re thinking about to new workflows, you may just also want to think about that larger picture.

for now, i would urge folks to just continue to identify as best as you can. if you would have identified 10000 observations at 5 seconds per identification in the past, and now it takes 7 seconds per identification, then just do 7000 identifications. or even better, do 3500 identifications with half the time, and spend the other half of the time mentoring others to be better identifiers. (ultimately, i think sharing the identification burden is really what’s needed to tackle the growth in observations in the long run.) or just take a break, if that helps to recharge. this is supposed to be enjoyable. so please enjoy what you’re doing.

i get the sense that some people feel disrespected by the change or perhaps the lack of communication in advance of the change. (how could they make such a change that has such an impact on a core thing that i do in the system without at least getting my input? if it wasn’t worth anyone’s time to find out how i work, then obviously all the time i spend isn’t valued very much, right?)

i think the right way to express such frustration is not simply to quit and burn bridges or to issue a “roll back the change or else” ultimatum. i think you’ve got to express your points in a way that you can make sure they get heard, and at least allow for a response. for example, i don’t think it would be unreasonable to ask that the points in this discussion here and on the journal blog be summarized into a list of concerns and proposals for action, with arguments for and against each item, and then request that iNat respond to each item. from that, everyone will get a better understanding of the situation, i think.

it may also be worth talking about ways to prevent surprise changes in the future. as iNaturalist’s user base grows and diversifies, certain wide-ranging changes may deserve a little more input and consideration before they are implemented. certainly you wouldn’t want analysis paralysis, nor would you want to have a vocal minority to drive all action. you also wouldn’t want to add too much administrative burden to the small iNaturalist staff. but there’s got to be a good balance between discussion up front and dealing with complaints and inquiries on the back end. obviously since iNaturalist is a private entity, they can do whatever they want, but maybe they might find that having a structured process for previewing and discussing big changes might be useful to at least ensure folks aren’t surprised by changes in the future? (the way some governments publish a periodic register and hold public input meetings might serve as a model.)

as for the merits of the Agree button, i’m personally ambivalent about it in general. yes, it might help speed up the process of identifying for some folks in some cases, but is the Agree button really the thing you dream about at the end of the day? really, i think most super identifiers just want a fast way to make identifications, right? the Agree button just happens to be one of the fastest ways to make IDs on certain observations right now, but i bet most would be willing to part with it if there were other ways to make IDs just as fast (or faster).

just as an example, this time of the year, i’ll often look at observations that have been identified as Rudbeckia amplexicaulis, and i’ll end up invariably doing one of 3 sets of actions in 95% of cases:

  1. ID as Rudbeckia sect. Rudbeckia + comment “probably R. hirta or something similar. R. amplexicaulis would not have hairy green parts like this.” + annotate as flowering
  2. ID as Ratibida columnifera + annotate as flowering
  3. ID as R. amplexicaulis + annotate as flowering

so instead of having an Agree button (especially since i’m often the first to make a disagreement), i would much rather be able to press 1 to do #1 above, press 2 to do #2, and press 3 to do #3. that would save way more time for me than having an Agree button, i think. so i’d encourage others fighting for the return of the Agree button to think about and be open to other (possibly better) alternatives.

the need to keep an open mind to alternatives also applies to some of the other considerations that were brought up. for example, folks said they use Agree as sort of a social lubricant or as thanks for an identification. sometimes i think that a little heart button on an identification would be equally effective, with fewer unpleasant side effects.

my point is that just as we don’t want to make changes that cause us to go backward, we don’t want to go back to simply go back to the way things were, if the same level of effort could take us forward.

and with that, just as i thanked identifiers at the beginning of the post, i’d like to thank iNaturalist staff. i know you all have to balance many priorities, and i know you have to make unpopular decisions sometimes. on balance, i think you guys are doing a great job. thanks for your hard work.

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70

As to this, I will give not a presumptive example, but real cases from my own experience. There are OBs, research grade, with four or more IDs - erroneous. And the case is not Gerald the muskrat. The cases are lichens, for which IDers are very few, especially outside US. So, I add correct ID for the named observation.Guess, what happens then? Especially when previous IDers have moved on or are just irresponsive?

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