For example, Lets say I have an observation that I think is some species, X or at least belongs in genus or family X. I upload it, and it seems to go under the radar for a while. Should I go into the page for X, find the common identifiers, and tag them to try get an identification? Or should I jus…

Plants are very location specific and someone with lots of plant taxa ids on a different continent is not that likely to be able to help unless you happen to find an introduced species from their continent

[image] astra_the_dragon: can be key (or necessary) to reach RG. I’ll just throw it out there that not everything needs to get to RG. It’s become this target that everyone strives for, when in fact it should just be something that either eventuates or does not. Value can be added to an observ…

For plant submissions, in my experience, even in regions that are fairly well studied, it can take weeks or months or even years (if ever) for someone to come along and provide or agree with an ID. Not a criticism, I think it’s just the paucity of very good botanists and difficulties in IDing many p…

Hey! I just want to say I am so very grateful and humbled by the attention and care I have received when I ask for ID help. I try to express that gratitude consistently and often. As a result I have been able to ask for clarification at times. I will write out my reasoning for an ID on occasion.…

Thank you @edLike ! Your post is a wonderful testimonial to what iNaturalist is all about.

Perhaps not exactly on topic but I struggle with when to tag a curator on the site, and which one I should ask for help. I ID a lot of observations that are “unknown” so see a lot of strange things and I often have no idea what I should do about them or who to ask. I assume that cleaning up such obs…

@juliereid for “Unknowns” I don’t think there is much expectation to try to tag others for IDs, unless it is an observation that particularly interests you and you have a pretty good idea of who to tag. There are a fair number of people who scan unknowns regularly and do what they can, and thank yo…

I think by strange things (I am One of the folks she tends to message) she does not mean organisms she does not recognize, but mainly records that would fall under the human or at least evidence of human criteria, and are they requiring flags etc.

Chris is right. I come across very strange observations that don’t meet the standards of the site, but I don’t always know what to say to the submitter since I don’t want to alienate people from the site. I also don’t want to put in the comments why I am tagging a curator for the same reason. It wou…

Thanks for the clarification. I guess when in doubt, an alternative to trying to tag a specific curator would be to flag the observation as “other” (if one of the defined flag categories doesn’t seem to fit) to get it out in front of the general curator community. Adding a longer comment to the fl…

General consensus on etiquette regarding recruiting IDs from specific identifiers?

General

upupa-epops July 22, 2020, 2:15pm 46

There is this thread that is mostly discussing that topic: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/recruiting-more-identifiers/2388

Topic		Replies	Views
Tagging etiquette and ID Responsibility General question	61	2452	September 13, 2025
Requesting an I.D General	18	1622	May 19, 2024
Little interaction by the community General question	54	4863	November 18, 2021
Recruiting more identifiers General	282	26560	October 22, 2019
Waiting for ID`s General	50	1644	October 25, 2025

General consensus on etiquette regarding recruiting IDs from specific identifiers?

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