How much expertise should we have when identifying?

[danaleeling]

@mamestraconfigurata

I’m also wondering how much of a problem this actually is. Are there any data that would suggest that rampant misidentification takes place on a significant scale? This is a legitimate question - I don’t know if misidentification is problem.

The thread Identification Quality on iNaturalist covers this well. There is also a journal article on the Identification Quality Experiment. I recall reading somewhere, but I cannot now locate, that the misidentification rate in iNaturalist is lower than the rate seen in some curated collections such as herbaria. In part this is apparently an effect of “many eyes” and the dynamic nature of identifications in iNaturalist.