It might from December to mid-April but all that work is lost just by the first day of CNC.
108,432,199-Save the number!
Let’s get the number below 107,432,000 by January 15th!
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I remember one of those. The note was “Ahven”, and all I could think of is “Ahvenanmaa”, Finnish for Åland, an autonomous part of Finland where the majority language is Swedish. It turned out to mean “perch” (kind of fish).
How about a thousand extra identifiers who sort unknowns, but one (I) knows geometrid caterpillars, dogfennel, mule and white-tail deer, green anoles, and Argiope aurantia, one knows California poppies, toyón, and Taricha, and so on?
This annoys me when I see an insect larva, but don’t recognize the order. I can put it in Pterygota, but can’t annotate it as larva without choosing an order, because Holometabola isn’t in iNat.
Where can we sign up for IDathon? I’ve seen it somewhere, but don’t remember where.
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And say you’ve just gone through the Hibiscus (taxon 48891) observations to knock out anything which isn’t a Hibiscus. How about looking at any other observations which someone has at some point identified as Hibiscus, but which are not currently showing that as their community id? You can then go through and add weight to any of the the agreements or disagreements as far as your comfort level allows and help get the observations onto the right path.
Change out the value at &ident_taxon_id=48891 and &without_taxon_id=48891 for whichever frequently misidentified taxon has caught your interest, and adjust for observation type, project, location, etc in the filters as usual.
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How to understand the thread’s title?
Thon = just an example for a fish? Unknown –> ID Thon?
Something like Decathlon? No ‘L’?
Yes ! See the lovely new stats on offer for IDs. Watch the green line on the new chart for IDs etc.
Keep in mind if you use Visually Similar (which I mostly do) to check distribution. Is that visual match even found on ‘this’ continent, or is it Endemic to wherever ??
If not absolutely sure go up taxon levels till you are comfortable. Is it That Bee, not sure, choose bees. Broadly right is better than narrowly wrong when iNat applies the CID algorithm. More than two thirds must agree.
@phma see today’s https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/120975-id-a-thon-starts-today with an explanation of the new stats for IDs.
@jeanphilippeb it is a word play on IDs and marathon. (but needs hyphens ID-a-thon)
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Please be a little bit careful here. Sometimes the CV’s confidence does indeed indicate that there really are only a few possibilities and they are distinctive.
But sometimes the CV has only learned one or two species in the family or genus and there are a lot of other similar species that it simply isn’t aware of.
If it is a taxon or region you are not familiar with, it is a good idea to do some checking before using one of the suggestions. One option is to consult external resources which might have species lists or guides. Another very rough estimate for whether identification is more complicated than the CV makes it seem is to check what percentage of observations of the broader taxon have confirming IDs and at what level. Usually if a taxon is difficult, there will be fewer skilled IDers and also fewer observations that are RG at species.
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Probably not. There will always be some portion of observations that get stuck in Needs ID indefinitely (e.g., the hopelessly blurry photos, the ones that just barely do not show the features needed to determine the species, the ones that are probably that species but there is a small possibility it is something else and nobody wants to disagree or confirm, the ones where nobody has figured out what it is, etc.). Since, for any number of reasons, people often do not use the “ID cannot be improved” button to make these observations RG or casual, the absolute number will tend to increase over time – reducing it significantly is probably not realistic.
However, what may be realistic is to strive to decrease the percentage of Needs ID observations. Assuming that observer behavior does not change significantly, difficult observations should continue to make up a more-or-less stable fraction of new observations.
At present, some portion of observations in Needs ID are perfectly identifiable – that is, the only reason they are not RG is because nobody has managed to look at them or there are disagreements that need to be resolved. So if the Needs ID percentage of total observations is reduced, this would indicate that more identifiers are tackling this backlog.
I personally find sorting unknowns to be more strenuous than looking at broadly ID’d observations in a particular taxon, because the percentage of observations that have problems that require sorting out tends to be higher than for observations that have an ID. I also prefer to look at observations in areas where I have some general knowledge. I find it very disorienting to look at global unknowns because I know I can’t provide IDs at as fine a level as I would in more familiar regions, and I don’t have as much knowledge to help me evaluate the CV suggestions.
Note that when I do look at unknowns, I do not sort them into iconic categories, and many people who ID unknowns in fact do provide finer IDs when they can. I don’t think people looking at unknowns should take the attitude that if they just add an iconic category this is a huge service and they don’t need to try to suggest anything more specific if they are able to do so.
But one reason that unknowns are often recommended to beginning IDers is because it is a way that one can help if one does not yet have a lot of knowledge and may not have a solid grasp of taxonomic relationships. Ideally what would happen is that users who start out by providing really broad IDs for unknowns become more familiar over time with finer taxonomic categories (i.e., instead of “plant” they can call it a conifer; instead of “animal” they can call it an arthropod). And as I see it, labeling a plant a plant or an insect an insect is a good start – people like me who find unknowns stressful but do know a bit about plants and insects are more likely to see the observations there than if they are left in unknown.
As I see it, the ID-A-Thon is aimed at primarily at people who are not active IDers – who have never provided IDs for others or only do so occasionally. For those of us who already spend far too much time IDing and who are unlikely to run out of observations in our areas of interest any time soon, it is just another week.
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ID marathon
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Quoting from iNat’s blog post. We. Are. All included.
Whether you’ve made zero IDs, a few hundred IDs, or tens of thousands of IDs, this is your moment to jump in, sharpen your skills, and make a real impact for the global iNaturalist community.
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It has nothing to do with inclusion or not. My daily routine already involves a lot of IDing. I see no reason why I should feel obligated to do more than I am already.
If it motivates some people to try something different – great.
But this doesn’t mean that my regular IDing doesn’t involve “sharpening my skills” or that I should somehow feel that the ID-A-Thon gives me an opportunity to “make a real impact for the global iNaturalist community” in a way that I could not do otherwise.
The comment that I was responding to was a statement that if we (collectively) keep doing what we normally do, nothing will change. Well no – it won’t. But that isn’t necessarily because we (individually) aren’t already trying hard enough or spending enough time IDing.
For some of us, we are already working at our limits and what we desperately need is more skilled people helping.
I’m all for an ID-A-Thon if it results in more cooperation and strengthening of community and new opportunities to support and mentor one another. This is more challenging than simply getting more people to provide IDs, and iNat’s infrastructure only offers limited support for this sort of collaboration. I hope that long-term, maybe the ID-A-Thon will result in some cross-pollination and recruitment of more active IDers. But merely “we all need to do more” isn’t the way to accomplish this.
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I am similar – I live north of San Francisco, California, so I often start by filtering my county to support my local fellow naturalists (and to see what my local peeps are seeing out there and where). Then I frequently filter nearby counties as well. This way, because I am SO familiar with nature in our areas, I know I am providing accurate IDs on things I know. Then, I also like to filter by the many projects I have joined, which sometimes leads me to ID species in other parts of North America that I still know and can ID accurately. Again, fun to see where my familiar species also exist and what people see where. I also like to dig for more applying more detailed ID, like for Brown Pelican here further ID-ing it as California Brown Pelican, then adding annotations to them too.
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It defines the project December 15 through January 15 to help provide as many accurate IDs as possible during this time period (when those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are rather locked in winter). Events, such as this, are referred to as an a-thon, for instance like a Walk-a-thon or Bike-a-thon, often where participants sign up and try to do as many laps as possible in a specific time frame, frequently as a fund-raiser where they have gotten sponsors to pay for each lap completed. In this case, it’s just a way to use a similar title to gain attention. I apologize if you meant your comment as tongue-in-cheek, I took it seriously.
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“Should you join” do you mean the ID-a-thon? There is no need to “join”, just keep doing what you do! You are important because you are consistently ID-ing. I do the same, over breakfast too, and find it satisfying. Sometimes I get sucked-in to it and find I have been sitting here an hour or more. I consider it my “brain game” since I hate crosswords. Plus I enjoy seeing what others in my area are seeing and where (I frequently filter for my county, nearby counties, and projects I participate in). I also add annotations to just about every observation I add ID’s to. It all takes a while and can even feel tedious, and I feel it is a way in which I contribute back to the iNat community since I have so many observations myself!
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I think its useful only when theres a second Identifier who IDs those higher taxa like dicots, youre passing the observations into their hands essentially
when you find an extremely niche moth that doesn’t pop up on the CV but you know exactly what species it is. Best feeling! 
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When doing unknowns, I rarely identify down to species unless I am really sure. What I do is use the CV to look at guesses and go up the taxonomic chain up to a point where I feel confident about it. If you press view on a suggestion, you can see its taxonomic ancestry and select the level you feel might fit. It also helps training the taxonomy if you are starting out.
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when the local peeps find smth cool its an exciting feeling cuz theres a chance next time you go out you may find it as well!
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Personally, I think identifying unknown observations really shows off the absolute worst things about this site, such as mass postings of low quality observations, of ambiguous subjects, heaped up in the mystery pile, often posted by shared school accounts, with zero communication from the poster, all the things said a thousand times after a ‘nature challenge.’
As far as I can tell, there’s no simple way to block these accounts from your identifying, and if I were new to it, I’d see this junk and write off the experience as an unrewarding, tedious waste of time. Without better content controls, this heap of low quality unknowns should be the last thing new ID’ers see, if you want to hold their interest for more than 5 minutes.
I’ve never spent much time on unknowns, mostly from lack of user filtering, and what I still see today certainly doesn’t make me want to begin. It’s one thing when the account has less than 50 posts, another when it’s at 3000 and still dumping.
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Here’s a link to all the Needs ID observations worldwide, except those in the iconic taxon Unknown. Enjoy!
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