That is the a default setting from the Geoscore. All of my URLs should be tweaked to suit (that is what I did when I met them on the Forum ;~)
And you would filter the location to suit yourself.
Thanks very much for this! I’ll adapt your queries to my Europe-based workflow.
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There are several ways I go about making identifications. Here’s my usual daily process (except when I’m traveling).
Over breakfast every day I look at all the Needs ID observations in my region (New England in the US) and add IDs where I can (except Unknowns, in case the observer hasn’t had a chance to add their ID yet). I don’t know many feathers or caterpillars, so when I come across observations of those, I’ll add annotations so the experts can find them more easily. I get through 10 or 20 pages of these a day, which may or may not be all of the new observations, depending on the season. I don’t ID birds, though; I figure there are enough birders around to take care of those.
Then I filter for Unknowns in my region that were added a week ago. I’ll often add broad IDs (Fungi, Birds, Insects) to these, just to move them out of Unknowns. If I have time, I often broaden the region I’m looking at to most of eastern North America and go through those Unknowns as well.
If I have still more time (and I usually do), I’ll come back to making IDs later in the day and do something like filter for a particular genus, usually plants, in my region and beyond, and push those observations as far along as I can. I might pick a random date several months ago and look at Unknowns world-wide. Sometimes I look at observations that have gotten as far as, say, Dicots or Monocots and see if I can help out with those. Once in a while, I’ll look at jeanphilippeb’s Unknowns projects and zip through various groups, adding broad IDs (Snakes, Grasshoppers, Fungi).
I use different processes partly as a way to keep me interested, but also as ways to give quick feedback to new observers, to make some progress on cleaning up older observations, or to keep on top of easy-to-ID species like Buttonbush or Pickerelweed.
I’m almost at my 6 year anniversary of joining iNat and I’ve made a little under 280,000 IDs in that time. That’s more than 46,000 IDs a year or about 125 IDs a day. Persistence pays off!
ETA: I forgot - I really only look at Needs ID observations. I don’t go through Research Grade ones at all.
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First, I start with a page or so on the front page of people and places I follow, then I check my notifications and then ID more pages until I get bored. (It takes a long time to get bored LOL!) Sometimes, I’ll hit the Identify page and ID birds. I usually always do the same thing in the evening, and often in the afternoon. I usually ID 60-100 obs a day, yesterday was a fairly normal day and I IDd 76 obs. I guess what drives me to do it is just because love it! And I also want to see stuff RG! I hope this helps!
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This is super organized. Congrats!
I’d like to have an url for insect conflicts Southern Africa, how do I compose this?
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I do almost only a region (Southern Africa) and start with insects, then do also other taxa sometimes.
Generalists would have a good impact when they could sort unknown plants and insects to familiy and genus level in the less active regions of the world (not North America, Europe)
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Try this? I tweaked my plant conflicts
insect conflicts Southern Africa
no - that is for galls - insect vs plant host. Will try again
Pre-Maverick insects Southern Africa about 1K for me
The second one looks promising, does it iclude all insects where there is a disagreeing ID?
Thank you, Diana!
Pre-Maverick is 2 against 1.
Or 1 Proud Maverick battling the other 2.
You can tweak the taxon and / or location to suit.
I’m not a crazy identifier, but I tend to ID maybe 500 different things a day - depending on my schedule.
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As a taxon curator (Neotropical Phasmatodea) my shortcut to iNaturalist is already the page configured to open all records for Phasmatodea in Brazil, where I monitor daily new records. After that, I move to South America observations, then Proscopiidae observations for Brazil (I’m hooked on stick bugs, please send help) and after that I cycle through all observations missing identifications for Brazil.
I also have a Whatsapp group with a bunch of Curators, regular iNat users and researchers from Brazil where we share observationsa and identifications, help each other, share curatorial requests, so after I’m done with the stick insect part I go deal with any flags or ID requests.
And also from time to time I take some time to read a major taxonomic revision, review all records of Phasmids for Brazil to see if I can identify a previous uncatalogued species, add anotations to all observations of a determined taxon, etc. This way when I need to import any set of data for my research all the records are neatly organized.
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This is a really nice service, @lynnharper!
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Due to years of hands-on experience with a particular family of birds in Central and South America, I found that I have a niche in identifying them. I spend several hours every weekend working on identifications. I change up my approach: I sometimes focus on one species within the region, sometimes focus on a specific country, or sometimes a specific year. Part of my process always included adding annotations (gender, breeding pair, nesting behavior, etc.). Also, the further along I get into a subset of IDs I’m making, I inevitably come across a lot of images that require further processing to either make a species ID or to say that only a genus-level ID is possible. This means that for each set of IDs I make, the last 25% can take as long as the first 75%.
Once I get through the current backlog on this family of birds, I plan to move on to other animals that I’ve worked with (birds and beyond!) and then just circle back to this family periodically.
Also, as an organizer for the City Nature Challenge in my county, for several months of the year, I switch gear and focus on observing and making local IDs. I’m a generalist when it comes to local observations and IDs. I love finding things I’m familiar with, and I also love learning about the new things (to me) I encounter! :)
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I have a limited attention span, so I have a bunch of different searches that I switch between to keep it from getting monotonous.
My default ID landing page is observations in California, and I usually pick off a few easy ones on the first page before I narrow it down.
I have a couple favorite taxa I try to keep on top of, so I’ll look for new observations of those - for example, Arbutus: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=51047
Then I’ll edit the URL to observations someone identified as Arbutus, even if the community taxon isn’t there yet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?ident_taxon_id=51047
There are a few identifiers in my area who tend to make a lot of errors, and incorrectly promote many things to RG, so I have a bookmarked URL with their usernames which I check through periodically for obvious mis-IDs:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch%2Ccasual&iconic_taxa=Plantae&photos=true&ident_user_id= username1,username2,username3, etc
If I’m feeling a bit ambitious, I might go for identifying Unknowns - I usually sort those by random to get a good mix.
The “pre-maverick” project is also useful for finding observations that need a tiebreaker ID: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id&verifiable=any&project_id=156949&place_id=any
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That’s only if the project is taxon and/or location based (admittedly, most projects are). But there are thematic projects for which this is not the case.
I change what I do. My default, when I’m tired, is to open “Identify” and ID what I can. Not efficient, but I do get to see odd things. Sometimes I identify things in my state (Oregon) or my county or a nearby county. Other times, I select taxa that interest me (Gaultheria, Phleum pratense, Carex, or something else). Once in a while I’ll attack organisms labeled Plants, Dicots, or Monocots (general categories) and it’s frustrating how few of them I can bring to more specific ID’s. Still other times, I set the date as the current month and day but 1 year ago (or 2 or 3 or more years ago), for Oregon or a larger area. Once in a while I’ll look at everything for one year in one place. I follow some people and ID what they post, if I can. If I participate in a bioblitz or other project, I’ll ID observations for that, for a while.
I don’t have saved searches because I find it easy enough to type in the organize or place or person I want. I had a lot of trouble figuring out what format the computer wants for the date, though! Obviously, some people swear by saved, complicated searches.
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I have a giant link filled with separate taxon id’s that I know I can identify in the Eastern United States. I’ll add more and remove some as I go but I keep a notepad with the link. You just click on a species or genus that you know, and it will show the taxon id in the link, and then you just add it to your list.
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Nice!! Sometimes I go crazy and ID a ton… once, I IDed everything at my local park (around 2,000 obs)
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I’m not as prolific as many IDers, but I have a strategy for saving my links in a journal that I don’t think anyone else posted about.
The first thing I try to do is review notifications: https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_observations_updates.html
I try to stop myself from adding new IDs before reviewing notifications.
After that, I go to my Identification Workflows post: https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/whitneybrook/71094-identification-workflows
The searches I almost always do are:
- primary area Unknowns,
- primary area high level plants,
- Broad area casuals
I have backed off Unknowns a bit this last season and have noticed that some other users stepped in. I learned a lot by IDing unknowns for my area and I like creating space for others to jump in.
I get more narrow with plants as I see opportunities. I broaden my ID efforts as the season winds down and there is less low hanging fruit in my primary area.
I am working on building a taxa specific search, so I can prioritize reviewing the local plants I know best. I still like seeing what’s in season by looking at all plants in the area and then narrowing my focus to a species or genus I think I can help with. If I’m seeing a lot of something at a particular time, I generally feel more comfortable adding IDs.
Edit: spelling
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I have a question about this. I’d like to identify all of the observations in my neighborhood. Is there any way to select a boundary on the map for identifications like there is for exploring? That would really help me. How did you select the observations at your local park?
The only way I can think to do my neighborhood is to go to explore, select the area, and then create a filter for needs ID and unreviewed. It’s a lot harder to ID this way than in the identification section.
Thanks!