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

It took me many months to learn it was possible to delete an ID instead of withdrawing. I never noticed the triangle menu.

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I did not know I ~could~ withdraw an ID, or even that it may be something I ~wanted~ to do until another user (gently) explained A bit about it to me in a comment on one of my Observations.

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I have a preference for withdrawing rather than deleting… Often it’s a visual reminder or heads-up to those browsing an observation that it can be difficult to ID that taxa… And kind of forms an “audit trail” of the pathway that the observation took to get to its eventual CID.

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This is a really good point.

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I see a lot of recommendations to withdraw but you also have the option to change your ID to a higher level taxon. If you think it’s species A and the other person thinks it’s species B, you can just change your ID to the genus (or family or whatever is appropriate for the situation.) That way you are still saying that you’re confident at the higher taxon level but maybe not certain at the species level. The community ID will then change to species B and “needs ID” since you are neither agreeing or disagreeing with the the second ID.

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As I was reading this topic I received notification that an ID had been made on an observation I had entered a few minutes previously. I checked it and, to my surprise, the ID was Plants. The Observation I had made was to species level. I entered it from the app on an Android device. My ID did not appear anywhere in the Observation. It didn’t even say that I had entered unknown, but I assume that’s what got entered. In short order another ID was made to species level but I’m pretty sure it’s incorrect.

I flagged it and filed a Bug report. I’m told this can happen when there’s a bad connection. My inclination is to delete the whole thing and start over. Any helpful opinions?

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I don’t really think that’s really a flagging situation. Filing a bug report (as you did) or emailing help@inaturalist.org would be better.

Also, why do you want to delete it? You can go back to it and submit a correct ID. No one will judge you for having accidentally uploaded it as unknown, and deleting/resubmitting doesn’t guarantee you’ll miss having someone else (or the same person) add an ID you feel is incorrect to the new observation…unless you have a Gerald/Berald/Ferald situation where you have a literal dozens of IDs you believe are incorrect to overturn in the community ID, but those are noteworthy because they are outliers, not the norm.

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It may take a little longer to go through the process of letting the ID get sorted out on the first one uploaded. When you add your ID, the observation name will go to “Dicots”, but I think it’s worth it because if your ID is correct the identifier will have had an opportunity to learn from the mistake, especially if you explain why you think yours is the correct one. Anyone else who views the observation can learn from the mistake as well.

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I don’t worry too much about the mistake (if I cared about that I wouldn’t stick my neck out and suggest species for taxa I don’t know well), but I don’t like the mess that goes with it. The idea (at least for me) is to start with an idea and refine it through dialogue with the community. This one is going to take a lot of refining.

I’ve had an informative and pleasant chat with a curator.

On the other hand, after poking around with the bookkeeping on this I no longer think it’s exactly what I was going to suggest, so it’s all good, I guess.

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until I was asked to delete my ID as it was untidy … I skip that person’s obs now.

It is thru threads like this, that I can learn new / better / faster ways to iNat. And also why that redundant whatever, is in fact vital to someone who uses iNat quite differently to me.

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I have to admit to being a little “neat freaky” in my early iNat days. I thought I was doing a good thing, but now I’m a little wiser… maybe tomorrow I’ll be a lot wiser!

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Well, I don’t want to keep mess and almost always delete my id if it’s incorrect, I love observations with a fiew clean ids, not a long list of something withdrawn.

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I was asked that, too, when I’d done a lot of general ID’s of things uploaded as unknown! So I went through and withdrew the identifications. The person was upset – too messy! He had to treach me how to delete. Oh, well. I don’t mind the mess myself.

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Don’t take compare away. I use it to look at other local choices already found in the area. It works best in well documented areas. If you are the first in your area to document a certain tachinid you won’t benefit from it. But if anyone else visits there and makes another tachinid observation yours will probably come up as a suggestion for that person.

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I would only agree in that scenario if I was already familiar with the genus/kingdom, and the species suggestion was something I could back up and confirm fairly easily and see where they got that answer.
That being said I don’t know much about birds, so if I say birds, and someone says a name, I’m probably gonna leave the bird people to figure it out.

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This is what I have decided to do. I am currently doing my research so I may feel comfortable agreeing with the suggested ID. I see no reason to withdraw or disagree w/o more consideration.

Yes! Only myself and one IDer have weighed in on the issue. And, as I mentioned earlier, I’m working with a single image from years ago - as many helpful IDers have taught me in the past, if it can’t be definitively IDed, it should be left as is. I have dozens of fungi & ferns that will never go RG - and that’s okay with me. I’d rather they remain broadly IDed than incorrect.

In your (the Community Members’) experience…

Why will an IDer request you change an ID to agree, or, withdraw/delete to tidy up the record?

What does it matter to the IDer as an individual - does the ob remain Needs ID and clog up the system?

Will their ID not count toward the Leaderboards/user’s ID count if it doesn’t reach RG?

In other words, what is the purpose in using precious keystrokes to ask me to fix my ID rather than taking the time to describe/discuss/detail the reason for the disagreement? I think this issue nags at me b/c I’ve had many conversations with IDers who patiently explain field markings, morphology, etc. and who are quite content to allow an ob to remain at Genus level rather than asking me to fix my ID to agree with their Species-specific ID. I am trying to understand the myriad personalities here at iNat and hoping to find my comfort zone while also furthering the purpose of the overall citizen science project.

I promise this is my last post regarding this situation…I’ve gotten enough advice to let my ID remain until I feel comfortable either a.) agreeing or discussing my disagreement. Thank you everyone for your input!

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Anything and everything that comes up in my geographic area. It even helps in deciding between the handful of syrphidae species one may expect here, so I can’t agree to that blanket diptera statement either. The compare button is by far the fastest, single-click way to get to the identify model style interface.

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But it sounds quite weird, iNat lacks photos for many species and comparing in syrphids easily can get a person thinking it’s the right species, while in the reality it has one additional stripe or brown tarsus III instead of yellow and it’s the other species. You need keys to id insects in groups where many, many species exist.

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@schoenitz and @botanicaltreasures
Noted! I just need to explore the tool more it seems!
My bad.

I think in terms of the UI design, I remain unconvinced it needs to be located there, alongside the Agree button though. If anything, for me, Compare could go in the triangle menu, and Withdraw should be brought to the forefront… To solve the bigger issues…
OR at least, Withdraw should be out front, alongside Compare.

But regardless, good to understand that people use this function…I obviously just need to investigate it more. :) As @dianastuder said :

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Yeah, I think this is the main issue for me when I’ve used in the past, there are either zero relevant suggestions, or the suggestions give you the impression you can ID to species based on simple visual aspects. Which seems to totally misunderstand more complex species groups (arguably, the bulk of taxa).

But, I can see that it can show options to look into at least, in taxa you don’t know… all-be-it, with due care. I’m still not sure I would use it over and above more thorough sources… but I could imagine it becoming a more practical source of info down the line, the more data is input into the system. But agreed, differentiating any Diptera, based solely on this, and without external sources would be very problematic.

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