Hi - I have a problem with two particular identifiers who constantly mis-identify my and other folks’ observations.
One of these identifiers is a foreigner who obviously does not know our species well, but for whatever reason feels the need to add their 2c, and another appears to have a compulsive need to be the leading identifier on iNat and rushes through observations so fast that he doesn’t look at the images carefully and often misidentifies things.
This means that significant numbers of my and others’ observations are not IDd down to species level - because of disagreements posted by these two identifiers - and they waste a heck of a lot of my and others’ time as we try to get their IDs corrected.
Is there some way we can get these folks banned from IDing? Or is there some other solution?
I look forward to your wisdom!
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You as the observer may also agree to one of the possible species. You may point out (add specific data on size or colour etc.) why you do not think it is that particular species. It may not always be that obvious looking at a single photo.
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Do these people do only agree to faulty identifications made by other users or do they put up a first identification (blindly choose from CV suggestions)
Generally this is a nuisance only if they do not follow up, and withdraw. Just tag them and post constantely: “Please reconsider” and if there is no response, send a PM.
Banning is not an option
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I agree that the best approach to volume misIDs is to first contact the identifier and explain the issue and ask them to change their approach politely. This often helps, but sometimes not.
If there are users who continue to add large volumes of misIDs and don’t respond to comments, etc. You can raise a flag on iNaturalist itself for curators. In these situations, it would be best to add some documentation to the flag (links to IDs, etc.). Curators can try to help, generally by contacting the user and explaining the problem to them. Suspension is generally only considered in the most serious cases where IDers have added repeated bad faith IDs or refused to change their approach in response to multiple requests.
On a side note, we are asked to assume that others mean well, so speculating on others’ motives for IDing is discouraged, and any issues with behavior on iNat should be discussed in generalities and not with identifiable info. Because of this, I’ve edited the initial post.
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To be clear, you are only speaking of one individual, not all identifiers outside your country, yes? You do not mean your country’s observations should be left to only those within your country, correct?
While you may be experiencing a particular individual whose knowledge base is unsound, there are many taxon specialists who know their specialties extraordinarily well, regardless of country of residence (and kindly contribute their knowledge to those Observations that come from far away).
(edited after reading Diana’s comment)
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I think you should just DM the person about all the IDs.
What you edited out, it still obvious from Lucy’s comment.
Ouch.
Foreign or local is secondary to me. I battle more with - I am interested in fish, but I will ID that as A Plant. The taxon specialist is very often based in ‘foreign’.
One of my current batch of - better onboarding of newbies - was in Mexico, and I am grateful to @ItsMeLucy who could welcome them in the right language.
From @adamwelz profile
I mostly post crap record shots here. Some are really crap; I will crop a few pixels out of a blurry background
which leaves me sympathising with his identifiers ;~) Pictures look fine to me - so maybe the profile needs updating?
I am very careful to upload identifiable photos, usually a series from different angles of the same organism. This is not a problem of not having good-enough images. This is a problem of hasty people taking chances so they can get a higher number of identifications on their profile.
I’ve left replies asking them to reconsider. Many times. Politely. They continue doing it.
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Hi, Diana:
Oops! The Forum was wonky for me when I was trying to comment very early this morning, so I saved my comment as a draft and came back an hour later and just hit “publish” without checking the thread further.
I have edited my response now to be consistent with @cthawley’s edits. (It may be that I was trying to publish whilst he was editing and/or making his comment the solution, and that is somehow problematic.)
In any event, I am sorry if this created distress.
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Even my crap shots are identifiable; I don’t upload images that are obviously not identifiable. e.g. this image https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/64378150 - however, this is not my point. I’m talking about crystal clear images, often multiple of the same individual organism, that are misidentified due to haste or cluelessness by two particularly persistent people.
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Hi Lucy - I am well aware that many taxon specialists are not resident in my country. If you read my post you’ll see that I referred to a single individual foreigner.
Perhaps, instead of misreading my post and making an off-topic response, you could answer my question?
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Thanks for your useful response.
I’ve left many comments in the relevant threads politely asking these “problematic” identifiers to reconsider. Sometimes they do, often they don’t, but in any respect it’s extremely time-consuming to have to do this. Something more needs to be done.
Can you talk me through the process of flagging these mis-IDs and the mis-identifiers to iNat curators? As if I’m five years old? I don’t know how to do this.
Cheers!
I have both problems - bad first IDs and agreeing with faulty IDs made by others. I’ve also had them disagree with my IDs of my own obs of taxa that I know extremely well (!). And they both keep doing this, even though I’ve added comments politely asking them to reconsider. It’s such a time-waste!
I have no issue with you. It is an iNat glitch if the quote stays ‘unedited’.
I was not sure how you meant it. That was why I asked for clarification. Perhaps you might assume good intent.
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On any ID on the website, you can click the down arrow and then “Flag” - you should probably only flag one ID and then explain the issue in detail with links in comments on that flag. Generally, IDs should only be flagged if they are made in bad faith (joke, insult, intentionally incorrect, etc.), so you shouldn’t flag all IDs that you think are careless. Careless IDs aren’t forbidden per se, so you’ll need to politely explain that you see an issue with the user’s overall pattern of IDs and justify your position.
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Adamwelz, I never said anything about image quality.
The escalation process I have been told to follow for problematic IDers is:
- Comment @ them to see if comments get them to change their ways.
- If comments do not work, send a DM to the problematic IDer.
- If that does not work, compile some evidence of your efforts (e.g. links to comments) and email help@inaturalist.org to request staff intervention.
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