Expand the Similar Species tab into an editable identification guide

Feature Requests
65

They’re certainly not always helpful for indicating what the most likely to be confused species are, particularly for uncommon species - but I’ve recently started treating them as another place to look for observations to ID, and they can definitely be handy for that…

66

are from obs where people IDed A as B. It collects mistaken obs, rather than intended to suggest A could also be B. If you click the number top right on the photo - it will take you to the list of mistaken obs.

For random example https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1588569-Anemia-afrorum
Then similar species Tanacetum takes you to https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/271130377
There is a certain likeness in the leaves but the distribution map disagrees. From Canada to South Africa?

67

i do enjoy being able to see the mistaken obs. however, even without those, the similar species tab is still extremely useful for me. it gives me more to compare my identifications to. maybe there could be a separate similar species tab for the inat id info?

68

The similar sp tab uses iNat IDs.

69

Do you just mean the tab with “Identifiaction guide”? (and can include a section about similar species)

70

yeah. basically we’d keep the observation based similar species tab. and once we get identification guide tools here, there could be a separate handpicked similar species tab.

2 Likes
71

What if we hosted a separate wiki using mediawiki and had that show up kind of how like normal wikipedia shows up in the About tab?

I mean, look at this:

https://technicalinfinitecraft.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

if something as niche as this was able to get a mediawiki wiki, surely we can get a wiki up for this exact purpose, and then it should be simple to have this wiki’s page for the species show up in the Similar Species tab.

4 Likes
72

I would be in favor of such a guide, but my vote would be to keep the current Similar Species tab as is. I use the Similar species tab to look for observations to identify. This has helped me turn a lot of “Needs ID” observations into “Research Grade” observations, or, for captive organisms, I’ve at least brought the Community Taxon down to the species level or lower.

Overall I think the current setup is very useful for improving data quality by allowing users to find and ID observations, many of which are older and forgotten. But I also think some identification tips would be useful as well.

3 Likes
73

You can also use the new Disagreements filter or the Pre-Maverick project to find obs to ID.