I remember doing this with clusters of photos from a school group. Some of the photos were too out of focus or far away to ID but were clearly (well, unclearly) the same individuals photo’d by other students. I ID’d the terrible photos because I hoped that response would encourage the students and anyway, all the observations were of very common species.
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I don’t see a problem with doing this (I would consider the other photo reasonable supplemental evidence that I can evaluate myself). I usually leave a comment link the observation that I am using as supplemental evidence.
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I think this is a perfectly reasonable strategy. I just suggested that to someone else for some bamboo yesterday. The bamboo photo is too poor quality to judge anything about the bamboo, but there are several photos nearby of bamboo that is of sufficient quality. In this case the poor quality photo was of bamboo that jumped through the zoo fence and established itself outside of the zoo, so I suggested using the photos of the cultivated grove from the opposing side of the fence to make the ID.
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In most circumstances, I would view such “hearsay” evidence with a very jaundiced eye. As others have said, even experts sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes observers over-estimate the expertise of the person who is making an ID for them (in the field).
I have seen experienced observers, and occasionally even experts/professionals make mistakes when IDing an organism where they have posted a perfectly good photo to iNat. If they can make a mistake IDing a photo that they can carefully double check and examine as long as they want, how much faith should we put in an ID that was made based on a short sighting in the field, where no photo is provided?
To my mind, if there is no photo of the organism posted, it is equivalent to a “sight” observation, and on iNat, such observations don’t go to Research grade. It’s actually one of the positive aspects of the platform IMHO.
Notes are great and can supplement the evidence of a photo. Sometimes, a note can tip the scales between one ID and another (eg. a note on habitat, or something seen that is not apparent in the photo), but that will only apply in certain special cases.
Where two species are very similar, and the difference in appearance is very subtle, I am leery of allowing something in a note to tip the scales. However, if the difference is un-subtle, then I may allow myself to be influenced by a description of what someone saw. A good example from North American Butterflies is Orange Sulphur vs Clouded Sulphur. The butterflies typically perch with their wings folded, and from the underside, they are often indistinguishable. However, if the observer says that it looked “very orange” in flight, then I will take that into account. In my area, this works, but in other areas, where additional species are present, it might not.
In other cases, I’ll disregard notes where an observer claimed to have picked out a very subtle detail in flight, or from “10 meters distance”.
Part of being an expert is being able to weigh evidence.
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This isn’t exactly what you mean but I ask for a call description for American/Fish crows or give them an opportunity to change it to genus or just change it with explanation (photos being inadequate). Most thank me for the clarity.
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That is exactly what I do when I observe a crow in Maryland, where we have both American and Fish Crows. The first time I posted one, I thought they were all American, until some IDer (possibly you) asked if I had heard it calling, and explained that otherwise you can’t tell.
Since I hadn’t heard it calling, I changed that OBS to genus, and now I only ID them to species when I have heard them, with a note explaining it. Sometimes in the photos you can actually tell that they are calling, but even when you can’t, IDers have never challenged that I not only heard them, but can actually tell them apart.
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