in fact I try to have always a bit more ID’s (actually > 75,000) than observations (actually >71,000)
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Nice!
I try not to make identifications at all, only observations. Firstly, I am not a scientist, so I can only make the situation worse if I make an erroneous identification, especially considering that most users immediately agree with my identification, translating it to a scientific level. And secondly, from time to time there are people who say that I am not a professional, and that it is not worth making identifications if you are not 100% sure. Therefore, I prefer to be an observer.
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Thanks for sharing!
I regret that you have been treated like that.
Most iNatters are not scientists, and the scientists may also look at biodiversity beyond their professional slice.
You can add your IDs at a higher taxon level, where you are confident - not sure which mantis, but I can say insect.
that is an ongoing battle on iNat. If 100% is the barrier, most obs will be binned as Unknown forever.
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Considering the possibility of cryptic species, microspecies, and how DNA analysis keeps prompting splits and merges, I would say 100% sure does not exist. Anyone who is 100% sure just does not understand that every species concept in biology is just a hypothesis and sometimes subject to interpretation. It’s up to the individual where they draw the line for being “sure” about something - probability threshold of 90%, 95%, 99%,…? For most of biology, 95% (1 in 20 chance it’s something else) is good enough to call something statistically significant.
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I’m now at significantly more IDs than observations, more than 10k of which I’ve done this year. I find it the most fun to look at randomly sorted plants with only high-level IDs like Plantae/Tracheophyta/Magnoliopsida from Europe (where I know a bit more) or other parts of the world (where I often don’t know much at all), and try to get them down to at least genus or family level.
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I make like 4x more IDs then observations. It is time comsuming to upload thousands of observations.
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My observations significantly outnumber my identifications, I try to find things that need identification but there’s an army of identifiers picking up most things I am competent at identifying without risk of misidentification. I like going out and finding things to observe, and I’d like to help identify but for my region I currently literarily can’t find a way to actually add meaningful value. Anything I id in Texas & region is still also identified by a few others anyway since there’s a lot of active identifiers. I’m delighted that some generous folks have a hobby of identifying a lot, but the reality is that as a result of that, there’s so many identifiers in any domain I would be competent in that it’s hard to work find much to id, so I try in little bursts but find it’s mostly pointlessly duplicated labor staring at a screen clicking which is not what I want to do.
Moths are an area where there is a clear need for more help so I add ids there some, but it’s easy to blow through readily visually identifiable species quickly, and a few people already do that like every niche I’ve found. I like that other people are heavy identifiers, there’s a sea of observations needing identification, that’s great, but when I check the firehose it’s largely either unidentifiable from the photo, or a species I can’t identify, and focusing on my domains of competence, others have it heavily covered already.
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Awesome! Me too, I rarely mess up. The times that I do, I correct.
Yeah, people can be very rude here. They think they know better then pros. Huh, I bet you know much more then them. They have to understand people [ARE NOT PERFECT] and make occasional errors.
Then maybe step across to annotations to make phenology graphs more useful. Or caterpillar vs adult for moths.
Try this Texas Pre-Mavericks 34K should keep you busy for a while …
You can filter by taxon, or narrow the location, or choose a particular date …
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Thanks for that, looking at the first two pages for a few minutes seems like it reinforces what I was feeling about it being kind of hopeless. Each I checked dates on was already picked over, old observations that are not identifiable to species from the photos available esp. all those beetles/robberflies will never get a species from a photo since for most it’s impossible to id to species from a photo and the butterflies I spotted were at genus because that’s as close as they’re ever going to get with the poor photos presented. I’ll have more time later once I’m off work though and I’ll see if there’s some that could be nudged along more, but it looks like a lot there isn’t generally any further identifiable at least by me, and for at least half I scanned I would say they’re observations with media where no one could id to species.
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I have made more observations than identifications. I suggest an ID of observations I make but those IDs do not seem to count … confirming an ID is the counter. Tentatively identifying things is easier because iNat gives you hints and it is easy to pick a solid hint that you agree with anyway. I am more impressed with the effort put in to make an observation which takes a bit of effort to find and see the object plus take the image. I am more impressed with the organizers of iNat who have built up the database of observations and developed or used the AI algorithms to make the iNat utility to be one of the most important teachers of the natural world that I have experienced. True expert identifiers are valued and recognized (I think) by my me with private gratitude.
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Oh wow that is a long bio!
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Sure is!
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iNat counts IDs for others.
I have over 8 times more identifications that observations (~34000:4300). Because of my self imposed rules around new observations, it is easier to accumulate identifications. My observations require more time and effort than most of the identifying I do.
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Thanks. :)
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I add more identifications than observations to iNaturalist. Partly because I love identifying for this wonderful community, and partly because where I live unfortunately I don’t get many observing chances (and it’s heading into winter too right now which really cuts down on anything living)
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