I have more observations as identifications since I identify observations for a small region and I’ve only relatively recently gotten the confidence and ability to give a stab at identifications. I also only identify for plants (the only area I have much confidence in) so that’s also a limiting factor for me.
As some others have mentioned, I also do annotations whenever I remember and wherever possible. I try to remember to put them on all observations I upload too.
I’ve observed a lot more than I’ve identified, 11.3k observations and a little over 3k identifications. For me, it’s a lot easier and way more fun to go out and photograph things myself than sifting through other people’s observations. Although I am warming up to identifying slowly, maybe I’ll up my numbers during winter when I can’t go out as much!
Annotations however are something I’m way behind on, I need to go through all of my observations and annotate them properly, as over half don’t have a single one…
I believe that the only fair labor division is to aim to have more IDs than obs, in the spirit of “you get what you give.” If we are all just observing, who will ID those obs for us? I am saying this as a total nature dunce, because even a dunce like me can find a few species they would be able to ID with some certainty. It takes a village, and I am forever grateful to and amazed by all knowledgeable identifiers on iNat. Amazed, not only by their knowledge and dedication, but by their patience and good will as well (I know I have asked many stupid questions). They make the world go round, but we all ought to help.
I try to have about 2-3x as many identifications as observations. I don’t find it too difficult, as most of my IDs are just triaging unknowns to phylum or order. My understanding is that ~500 people make like half of all IDs, so I try to pitch in where I can.
Smidge away. Today on my hike we had the daisy with sandpaper leaves. You can’t ‘see’ that, but I assure you, I felt it ;~))
I’ve heard this too; I wonder where those stats come from. Looking at the top global identifiers, the top 100 identifiers have roughly a combined 50 million IDs. I wonder how many total IDs exist on the site, to see what percent that works out to.
see (d) 25% of IDs are made by 130 users
That is not sustainable.
Right now 361 IDs, 80 obs. I have some more observations to upload: three trees (plus ivy on one of them) which I have to measure the locations of, four more at the same site whose coordinates I haven’t converted to lat/long, five different plants in one pair of photos (not a survey site, so I’ll eyeball the location on the map), and a few plants at home.
I usually ID to broad categories like dicot, spider, beetle, or bird. I’ve IDed to species on a few occasions, such as some species of Argiope, tuliptree, and blue-and-gold macaw.
I have now more ID than obs, but it was not the case until 2 years ago. It took me some time to get enough confidence to be able to give back to the community, but once I did, IDs pilled up so fast ! (although not that fast compared to the most prolific IDers)
1002 observations, 67,274 identifications. 'Nuff said.
Right now I have way more observations than identifications. I’ve learned to distinguish some species but often times they are the ones that a lot of people already ID as well because they are easy. I know some more niche species but I never feel confident enough to ID them because I always feel like I’m missing a look-alike that I don’t know about yet.
This year (2024) so far, I have made 20,983 observations of 2,077 species and have made 78,891 identifications.
My identifications normally run about 3x my observations.
Nice topic and replies. A lovely read! With a little over 25000 identifications and a little over 4000 observations in two years, I have about six times as many identifications as observations, and I strive to keep it that way.
Identifying other people’s photos is not only a way of giving back the effort you recieve on behalf of identifiers on your own observations, but also a fun game to play to keep your knowledge of species fresh. For example, having moved back to the Netherlands five years ago after living in Mexico for six years, I especially enjoy ID’ing Mexican bird species to this day, so as not to let my experience with them become rusty. I am sure many people use ID’ing on iNat as a training tool in a similar fashion.
Looking at other people’s posts is also a huge inspiration for me. If other people see organisms that I do not, this opens up the horizon to go and look for them. It is a way of getting more familiar with species that I do not usually see in my area, and a method to learn more about new species, too. Thanks to the habit of identifying and browsing through other people’s sightings online on iNat, on a recent trip back to Mexico I was able to identify Mexican butterflies in the field, even some species which I hadn’t seen in real life before.
I enjoy both uploading and identifying, and I think they go hand in hand. If you are only uploading and not identifying, or vice versa, you may be missing out on half the fun that iNat has to offer!
More IDs than observations by a large margin. I like to observe things! It’s lovely. But I really enjoy the process of IDing, so I do that far more often. Working on catching up my annotations however!
I’m at about 10:1 IDs to observations - I figure if I want other people to spend their time identifying my ridiculous number of observations, I’d better help out too!
Thanks for everyone for sharing!
More observations than IDs according to the stats but I aim to ID everything I observe. The way things are calculated, though, it doesn’t give credit for those.
I have about 5 times as many IDs as I have obs. I can get through IDs a lot faster than posting obs.
Me too!
I am way more IDing then observing.
We could for sure use more people IDing at least double the amount of what they observe… if everyone would give back what they recive (to people that IDed their observations or maybe paying it forward to someone else, if the IDer does not observe the organisms one is confident in) the experience for observers here would increase drastically. But that is unfortunately not what is happening…
Look at the difference of the numbers here 
