That’s all very well if it’s the first species-level ID AND the observer doesn’t auto-agree, but if you’re providing an agreeing ID to get it to RG, it’s quite possible no one else will ever look at it…
Honestly, the potential for auto-agreement does make me more likely to go for a genus-level ID if I’m less certain, where otherwise I might go to species in the hope that I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong.
If I am very uncertain - I write the sp as a comment, and wait for taxon specialists to respond. I leave my notifications open - because I want to see WHO agrees with me.
my PhD is on a specific genus of plants. I review every single range outlier of the genus that comes through iNaturalist. every time I have to make tweaks to the range maps that I use in presentations (or occasionally a manuscript), I review all the range-edge observations again. it’s just how things are.
I also have to correct observations from Costa Rica over and over again, because it’s pretty well documented that this genus does not occur there at all (or at least nowhere in the country that anyone in history has ever visited with a camera or a plant press), yet the iNaturalist “geomodel” persists and persists in “expecting it nearby”… but that’s a different problem.
I can see this has been solved, but I’d like to add one more thing. Becoming top identifier for a species that has a lot of “farming” is extremely difficult and takes a lot of time and dedication even if we are assuming the people are simply doing it to be on the leaderboards. Once you become the top identifier for a frequently posted and difficult to identify species you will get flooded with pings sooner or later and the people who don’t do it to help people won’t want to deal with and will likely stop identifying, therefore sooner or later a more dedicated, smart, and humble identifier will go back to being the most frequently identifier.
Another note,
Being known as a good identifier also takes reputation. If you get a lot of @'s asking for help and you never respond sooner or later people are going to realize you aren’t going to respond. On the other hand, if you do respond and give helpful advice people will remember you and @ you again in the future. As an example I haven’t done more than 50 id’s per week in about 6 months. (Back then I did about 500+ per week) for latrodectus sps (widow spiders) and yet because of how I responded to pings and the resources on my profile people started to remember me as “a good spider identifier” and I still get bombarded (I don’t mind, just I get busy so I cannot also reply right away) with spider help @'s and pms both for spiders in and very far out of my range of comfortable identification. (For anyone wondering why I’ve stopped the Latrodectus genus is in complete disarray taxonomically with likely multiple species being compiled into one. I’m not a curator, but I hope after the next taxonomical revision everything gets fixed by curators. For an example, if I identified what is now known as Latrodectus Hesperus and later it is found out the individuals in south Texas and other areas were a whole other species I would be making more for myself. The other reason is that I’ve beendevoting my free-time to other things and getting busier)
These notes go towards any real problems regarding id farming not anything to do with extra notifications. As mentioned you can just mute them.
My view is the more the merrier.
I am on iNat primarily for fungi related learning, contributing, and networking. And for fungi, the more participation of opinions, the better.
When members come and reaffirm IDs as 6th, 7th, … 20th, I am appreciative because they have taken the time to stop by, review, and express their opinions.
I will say it can be extraordinarily annoying when you have a to change an ID (noticed a mistake, a split didn’t get committed properly, new research, etc) and because a bunch of random people dogpiled on 6-7 IDs for no reason you can’t even knock the observation back to genus level. I have had this happen numerous times and there’s really usually no reason to actually add an ID beyond 3.
I think staff has already implemented all they can (ie removing the agree button from all but the first confirmed ID), but this is more to encourage people who read this to NOT add on additional IDs if something already has >2 unless you have a real reason to do so.
Ping the users who made the ids usually at least one or two of them reply. If they don’t respond let other identifiers know and it will be fixed within the next days if you let the right amount of people know.
I very much disagree that, that is a reason to discourage identification on iNaturalist. I personally review RG observations and it is helpful to add ids to ones I’ve agreed with so I can be sure it is correct and don’t have to come back later.
You can use Reviewed for that.
But I know many taxon specialists prefer to add their ID, while they are checking that obs.
Yes, I prefer to add my id rather than use reviewed.
We do have reason to do this. First, if someone deletes their account, their ID’s go away. Extra ID’s insure the ID will remain. And forgive me but in some cases, I’m known to be good at IDing the species in question and I think that adding my ID is useful. (Of course, sometimes I’m wrong and I do watch notifications and change ID’s.)
That’s one of the best possible reasons for adding that extra ID. The platform is egalitarian, so all IDs are officially worth the same, but when you use iNat for a certain period of time, you quickly get to know (and welcome) those IDs that carry additional weight for a particular category or taxon. There might be no official “experts”, but there’s certainly bags of expertise and that “weighty” presence can certainly add an additional touch of reassurance.
That’s true! And although I don’t always acknowledge id…boy oh boy, I do light a smile when I see certain people have id’ed for me because I KNOW they know what they id.
Thanks!!!