Platform: Website Browser, if a website issue: Chrome URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: several, e.g. here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/335181614 Description of problem: Several of my DQA votes on whether the ID can be improved or not have completely di…

This was intentionally changed last month: [image] https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/120950-revisiting-based-on-the-evidence-can-the-community-taxon-be-improved

Just one section of that DQA shows as greyed out for me, the “Can the Community Taxon be improved?” query. And I think this may be because it is at species level but needs confirmation to reach RG? This is just a guess, though. To support this supposition, here is one of my own recent Observations ,…

[image] cthawley: I don’t really know why It’s greyed out because the CID is genus, but there is one species ID. The system treats that as an implicit “yes” to “can it be improved” – at least one person thinks it can, so “clearly” (according to the system) it can be improved and you don’t nee…

I think in the majority of cases you’re right, it’s not a problem. But in any case where a single person’s identification can change the community ID (I think most commonly this would be when there are only two identifications at the finest ID level), anyone can completely erase the votes without a…

Hard disagree with this logic. Even if there is an implicit “It can be improved” implied in the lower level ID, it doesn’t mean that other IDers shouldn’t be able to cast a dissenting vote - just that they’d need two to “overrule”. These recent changes have tilted the balance of IDing even more towa…

I agree with @cthawley here - although there’s certainly an implicit ‘yes this ID can be improved’ from the person with the new ID, this shouldn’t stop others from disagreeing with this in the DQA. Other than in situations where the community taxon doesn’t exist (i.e. when there is only one ID), I …

[image] cthawley: it doesn’t mean that other IDers shouldn’t be able to cast a dissenting vote But can’t you (and shouldn’t you?) add a disagreeing genus level ID to bump the OID to genus, then check that DQA box? If you think the ID can’t be improved from the genus level doesn’t that mean yo…

[image] cthawley: It also seems like sometimes the DQA is disabled altogether? This is connected with the recent change that prevents observations from becoming RG if the observation taxon and the community taxon are not the same. The previous system had meant that the DQA could make observat…

As I said above, I think this change tilts the balance unnecessarily in favor of IDers who are willing to make speculative/leading IDs. In this situation, 4 IDers, including several of the most frequent/expert IDers of the genus and the observer, IDed to genus level and then at least one ticked “as …

[image] cthawley: One leading/more specific ID here (and I’m not criticizing the IDer, just the scenario) adding a more specific ID essentially wipes out all that previous ID effort (changes OID and removes DQA votes). Then, a previous IDer needs to see the notification of a finer ID (already di…

the fundamental issue is that “Can be improved?” operates at the observation level, and it theoretically refers to the community taxon, BUT the community taxon is not static and can change with any addition / removal of identifications. as long as this still operates at the observation level, there…

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General

cthawley January 20, 2026, 4:39pm 18

This is incorrect as I stated above. If the “No” is selected when the CID is below Family, the observation becomes RG at whatever level the CID is.

Topic		Replies	Views
Use of “It’s as good as it can be” in the DQA General	31	1179	April 4, 2025
Eliminate the observation-level "Can the Community Taxon be Improved?" DQA item in favor of an ID-level "Cannot be Improved" flag Feature Requests	13	1004	September 18, 2024
Genus-level observation reaching Research Grade despite no DQA vote that the Community Taxon is as good as it can be Bug Reports	4	372	March 25, 2024
Remove "Yes" votes from the "Can the ID be improved" DQA when the Community Taxon improves Feature Requests implemented	13	1428	January 20, 2026
Why is this Observation Casual/Needs ID/Research Grade? - "Official" Topic General web	355	21216	November 17, 2025

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