General Consesus on Being Asked to 'Fix' One's ID

Yes…that is definitely the problem. I have to take the time to consider the IDs as they relate to my area, my images…then I may be able to make an educated decision.

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You are free to leave your ID, as it is, while you consider the new suggestion. You are under no obligation to withdraw or agree, until or unless you wish to.

Case by case basis, if I know that second ID comes from someone I trust - then I will withdraw. But not agree unless I feel convinced, it is that, because …

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A more appropriate question is whether you have the “expertise” to make the identification, rather than how “confident” you are in it. Dunning-Kruger is very real among naturalists.

Never blindly Agree with anyone’s identification. Do your homework and ask questions. You should be able to either persuasively support your ID, or be able to argue against the suggested ID. If you can’t do either, then it is better to withdraw your ID. I run into this problem a lot on here, and it mostly leads to observations that unnecessarily get stuck at a higher taxonomic level. I can’t begin to guess how many times I’ve corrected identifications, only for those to wallow at family or order-level.

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

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That will go a long way to helping them learn or advance their skills.

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A user with 2500+ observations and not realising the importance/existence of the withdraw function…?
I think I didn’t realise how to use this for a long time either…

More evidence of the need for better placement and renaming of this function to help deal with the data quality issues resulting from blind agreement?

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Better on-boarding has long been identified as an area needing work, and they are currently working towards it…

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Yes. I think that if you’re not sure about your own ID it’s advantageous because then the label on the observation is more specific and that will attract more identifiers to resolve the issue. Both IDs will still be visible, and if your withdrawn ID is ultimately confirmed you can restore it.

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Yes! True.

I think the movement of the withdraw function to a more visible place goes beyond on-boarding though. As at 2500 obs people are well on-board already!

The on-boarding changes will presumably apply to those who are brand new, or sub 100 obs or something. So might not be visible to a large portion of users.

It would just be better UI to have the withdraw function as a visible button IMHO.
Its arguably, as important a function as “Agree”.
And personally, I use it a hundred times more than “Compare”… which I pretty much never use.
( does anyone use “Compare”? )

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The “triangle” button is well seen, and if you want to delete an id (which happens with everyone) you click on it and read what’s there. But if it was a separate big button probably it would be a faster process.

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Just my two cents as an “expert” and someone who ID’s things and doesn’t contribute all that much relatively in terms of photos. I just spent 4 days going through and identifying nearly 1800 unidentified or misidentified NA cicadas with another person. I don’t ask people to “fix” an ID (or tell them they are directly wrong), but I don’t usually give a justification for why something was identified as such. There is currently a 535 page backlog of unidentified NA cicadas (it was 595 before we started). I just don’t have the time. If someone tags me I’m always happy to help explain my reasoning. With my own group I tend to take more time to explain things, but people only post a few of them a day, and I’m not trying to clear out thousands of images into RG or at least get a correct ID that someone can decide to accept or not. Not sure if that really helps, but if someone is going through thousands of images to ID what can be ID’d it’s hard to at least comment on every one.

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I use compare. Which sometimes leads me to tweak the taxon pictures.
If … is the distinguishing feature, why don’t the taxon pictures show that

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To me, they sound exactly the same.

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There lies the problem… We have how many users in iNat now that have never really had on-boarding per se… From the initial core of original users that fully understood the mission and how the tool worked, the rest of us have jumped on board and been shown various interpretations of the mission and ways to use the tools… And then “broken phone” over time mutates it even further. Since joining the forum and engaging directly with the team, my own understanding of what iNat is and does has changed over time, and is still probably not fully on-board!

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You are right, seeking out information, reviewing it, critically evaluating it, perhaps adding it to your knowledge base is so overrated.

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In Russian it’s called a broken phone.

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I wonder. My mum couldn’t figure it out or understand the withdraw function when I was trying to explain it to her recently. In any case, somehow it reallllly doesn’t surprise me that the OP here says this when someone mentions withdrawing:

Having the button visible will make people click it to see what happens, it will be as intuitive as a.) or b.) to new users, and a clearer option for older users as well. Its better UI design! Regardless of time saved.

If you want people to stop agreeing blindly… you need to provide an alternative to the metaphorical big red push button saying AGREE BLINDLY. The compare button could just be placed elsewhere in my opinion. Its clutter, given the circumstances.

In fact, looking again, as an observer with 8000+ obs, I realise I have no idea what anything else on the triangle menu even does! Wow. I´m going to go and explore the triangle button menu for the first time…

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

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I’m always open to suggestion. If I think I’m right, I ask what characteristics they see that I didn’t consider. Sometimes it turns out I missed something; sometimes the other identifier, even if an expert, missed something. Dialog is important. Also, taxonomy changes. Species get split without much fanfare outside research circles. You or the other guy might have missed that.

You’re welcome to let your original ID “ride.” My grandmother raised me to be polite, though, so if someone specifically asks me nicely to do something I don’t feel is appropriate, I do respond and open a dialog. Sometimes I even ask one of the listed identifiers of the taxon with a good track record to weigh in.

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Tagging is an excellent way to do things. I communicate with other cicada experts on iNaturalist through tagging and commenting ideas, and people have started to tag me in their observations of my group to get my input. I think it’s one of the best things about iNaturalist in terms of drawing other people’s attention to a particular observation an soliciting feedback. It can also get my attention back to something that a person has a question about; how did I identify “X”, at which point I try and take the time to respond and give a breakdown of the ID points.

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