WARNING: There is a 0% chance that I dumpster dived irl.
The dumpster. What is it? Guess. If you thought that the dumpster is faves, you are right.
Why? Not because it or its contents are useless but because so many people just add it in and NEVER look back. Not all, but many.
Well I got this trick. Jump into the iNat dumpster. I find crazy stuff in there to id. If you are bored, check someone’s dumpster!
Does anyone else do this?
seems like this could be discussed as part of https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/faved-observations-talk/85949, without starting another thread.
I consider dumpster diving as searching for unknowns in the explore tab and then IDing them
To me, iNaturalist “dumpster diving” would be looking among the “Casual” observations for good observations. We know there’s useful stuff there, including the Captive/Cultivated observations, in their own way. I don’t even look, though.
Good point! IRL dumpsters are rich food sources for organisms, and we can dumpster dive to find undescribed species. A couple of relevant projects (just shared for context, not to promote) include:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/animals-in-urbania
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/organisms-found-at-gas-stations
I was thinking this too, but to add a second thought, it could also be considered looking through observations from the City Nature Challenge!
At the risk of upsetting those who participate, I have trouble with understanding the benefits of adding so many “bad” observations by users that don’t typically stick around or as a whole get taught how to observe in a “quality” fashion.
I ID all sorts of low-quality images and observations to improve the ML models in my area, but wouldn’t think of jumping into the CNC data but salute those that do clean them up.
Maybe those are the main benefits, getting more blurry images that can be identified to contribute to the ML model flexibility, as well as getting a better distribution of which species are cultivated around the world?
It was a little better this year, since Casual was excluded.
I have a fairly substantial list as a I favorite the photos I use for my guide so I can ask to use them or just to remember which one they are attached to.
Yes, same here. Providing initial IDs on “Unknown” observations is the best kind of dumpster diving there is, IMHO! Pulls the data out of no-man’s land, and helps mostly new users get oriented to placing initial ID son their observations.
FWIW I never tried dumpster diving and in India idk whether it is worth a look there, plus it is not a good idea in general, so I’d prefer not to. There could be a project for stuff found in dumpsters but I think it will be mostly over loaded with flies of various kinds, then probably some beetles or if you are lucky bird but yes without doubt lots of species take the opportunity.
went off topic.
do you look into other’s faves, that is the question. and now people are talking about what they think are dumpsters. I just wanted to know whether I’m the only one who looks into other’s faves.
Can a person see somebody else’s favs? I don’t see how to do it. (I know we can see who “faved” a particular observation, but can we see a list of all the observations a particular person “faved”?)
yep, it’s on the tabs across the top of a user’s profile. for some reason those tabs aren’t exactly the same as the list under the user’s name/photo
Duh. I should have seen that! Thanks.
Then you should have put that in the title.
Probably because most people don’t think of a “favorites” list as a dumpster.
Dumpsters are associated with things one dislikes and wants to get rid of and never see again.
Favorites are generally observations that one likes and/or finds interesting, or at the very least wants to be able to find and look at again at some point.
People often fave and forget. That is why I said it. they just forget it, in a large amount of cases.
What leads you to that conclusion?
Favoriting an observation does not require one to visibly interact with that observation at a later date. How would you know whether people often “forget” about the observations they have favorited?
I forget 
What? Looking at the top faved observations is definitely not dumpster diving. As said before, casual observations, and sometimes even the needs id of certain taxa are definitely dumpster diving.