Yes, the forum topic I joined in at was about showing scale I think… it wasn’t someone specific or to me personally…
But some, as is the purpose of a forum , thought differently… like using real measuring devices was better…( it is, but not usually convenient!)
I just find that the refreshing mix of super scientists and rule followers sometimes overwhelm those of us who are here on iNat to share the awe of seeing cool stuff, whether we know what it is or not.
How do you tell when an id was added in a random way?
This is part of iNaturalist Next, see https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000197160-how-to-make-an-observation-with-inaturalist-next
Perhaps there could be a way to mark observations from new-comers (say, their first ten observations) that would signal to identifiers that these observations need special handling - back pats, encouragement, guidance, tips and the like. People might be less hesitant to shares if they knew they’d get some hand holding to begin with.
iNat displays the ID with a human name. Whether we use a field guide, or years of knowledge, or CV as a tool. My ID is mine. If the identifier’s name is new to me - as yours was - I go to your profile - then I can evaluate your ID.
If I do recognise your name, but, because you enthusiastically add wrong IDs, then ignore notifications, or you were here for a week for CNC then disappeared forever … I can evaluate that ID too.
If. We had effective notification management, then wrong IDs would be a trivial problem. Hello? Wrong ID. Please reconsider?
You can choose to filter your preferred ID slice to Newbies. I do.
Also this iNat expt ?
https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/100580-identification-pilot-to-onboard-new-users
We don’t have to weigh that judgement very long. If I’m confident of the identification and/or if the observer has very few observations (usually visible when I open the observation in “Identify” mode) it doesn’t take more than a second or two to decided whether I’ll agree, disagree, or can’t tell and shouldn’t add any ID at all. Indeed, the only observations where I hesitate to suggest the ID that I think is correct are the ones where I do know the identifier and know that person is highly skilled.
I’m with @DianaStuder in wanting ID’s as precise as the observer can feel confident with. Obviously, correct ID’s are best, but taking a small risk of making a mistake is worthwhile because of the pool of identifiers that are likely to see the more narrowly ID’d observation.
In my area (Oregon, U.S.A.), the CV is usually accurate for the common, easily ID’d species beginners are most likely to post. Ideally, one should check the CV suggestion, of course, but here using its suggestion usually leads to correct ID – or one so laughably wrong we immediately know it’s wrong.
Agree! When I discovered the forum after years of using iNat, I was delighted to connect with the community. Then I became sad/frustrated at all the negativity I felt toward users like me. I try to remember that experience when I engage here.
Agree! Why does CV exist if it isn’t helping people figure out an ID and guiding the observation to experts that can evaluate the ID? Furthermore complaining about casual observers using CV is nearly pointless. In my area, I monitor:
When I first started using iNat and I would share it with others, people would say, “Wow! There’s an app that can tell you what a plant is?!” Now they say, “Well you know that the iPhone photo app/Google lens can do that for you too. It’s much easier.” Never mind if those IDs are accurate or using those tools makes a contribution to science. While we spend a lot of time on this forum bemoaning the lack of identifiers, the loss of new observers to other AI solutions is a strategic risk to this place that we all love.
Instead of complaining about the people using CV, I think effort should be spent on:
Very interesting comments that are worthy of their own thread.
Are people self-centred, and do they just care about “putting a name on it”?
How many people actually care about advancing scientific knowledge, and deriving a sense of purpose from this? (By contributing to something larger than themselves)
Do they care enough to use a solution (iNat) that might be less convenient than whatever AI tool they’re used to?
(I don’t want to talk about accuracy, because they won’t know the difference if another AI tool spits out a wrong answer. They’ll be happy with any answer, and they will assume that it’s correct.)
To be honest, if people are wanting IDs for garden plants (e.g. their Iris ‘Razzle Dazzle Sunset Blush’ or whatever), I’d say those two options are in fact better than using iNaturalist (because the CV isn’t trained on ‘casual’ observations, doesn’t do cultivars, etc.). It’s why the iNat CV can say, “I’ll bet my life this out-of-focus picture of a dried-up seedhead is this obscure parasitic woodland plant” (and be right!), but you give it a picture of a garden rose and it’s like, “I’ve never seen this plant in my life before. Maybe a dahlia?”
You can have that on the website too. Built for us by an iNatter (there are Forum posts too)
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/inaturalist-enhancement-s/hdnjehcihcpjphgbkagjobenejgldnah?pli=1
I might have overly played a rhetorical device and did not mean to be judgmental about the motives of others. I personally only started using iNat because I wanted to know what plants were called. If I had stumbled on another highly satisfying/effective/easy way of doing that in 2017, I would have stopped looking. Now that I am here, I love that iNat has a bigger impact than what my immediate goals were at that time. I’m sure other users have and will continue to join iNat for the broader purpose. Outreach to people motivated by iNat’s mission and thoughtful onboarding may become more important. Gatekeeping (expecting a lot of new users) may become more costly.
I agree! And a wonderful example. 
I can’t give advice as an educator about how to get students to their initial observation post. I do know that I was highly encouraged by receiving IDs when I did post. If you are in a position to add IDs to even a portion of what people post, retention/continued use may increase. Encourage people to enable the daily email digest on their account to receive notifications for when they do get IDs. In my experience iNat doesn’t spam, and knowing I have a new ID pulls me back into the site.
That might be true - but I suspect that a lack of identifiers is also a risk, in that the longer people have to wait to get an ID, probably the less likely they are to hang around. And the backlog at present is such that at times people are waiting years for an ID, even if it’s correct to species level. (Speaking based on lots of old plant records I’ve looked at - which of course ignores the possibility that they were identified by someone who’s since deleted their account, since I have no way of judging that.)
You can’t know with certainty, unless they admit to doing it. That’s part of the problem with doing this!
I’m sorry you have a problem with it.
In my opinion very few ids are given “randomly” or purposely misleading. I guess you’re asking them and and they respond “yes, I gave a random id to mislead the id”.
If you run into that consistently with individual IDers maybe you should let a curator know.
I love that quote. On the first day of each quarter with my university interns I say “The person here who knows the least is the most important, even if it’s you!”
Giving IDs based solely on the CV isn’t purposely misleading, but it is misleading. When you confirm an observation it implies that it was you that confirmed it. Not that you were able to click “Suggest an identification” and click the the first option. A machine can do that. Inaturalist doesn’t do this automatically for a reason.
To be clear, this isn’t just my opinion, but iNat policy:
You should be able to independently confirm your identification and be able to defend and explain it, citing evidence if asked. Please do not rely solely on AI tools like iNaturalist’s Computer Vision suggestions
and. That is your answer! A human chose to agree. If you can see they are wrong add a brief helpful comment. From me that is usually - you have chosen a sp from … it might be
from distribution maps, or iNat’s Geomodel Anomaly tool
you have chosen a sp from South Africa …
Taxon specialists add appropriate comments - all … sp are now in …
And, frankly, you have human input from iNat staff
Maybe we’re talking past each other by now, but iNat doesn’t need humans to click “agree” on the CV suggestion. It needs humans to identify the observation.
The OP’s encouragement for people to "load photos, gather the suggested ID, then click share” is against iNat policy, rather explicitly so. And iNat’s policy is good.