It seems like it would be possible to filter for “all the Unknowns that the CV thinks are highly likely to be Plants” so that an ID’er could just quickly Agree in the ID panel rather than typing out Plants every time. Is this feasible? Would it be a good idea?
my suggestion is ID whatever suits one’s current curiosity at whatever taxa levels one can at whatever region or habitat they are interested in but the only goal should be to try to ID consistently even just dozen observations a week or month - and if one never IDed much before I encourage and welcome those to jump in.
As the curves of IDs moving up cant be realised until curve of IDers move too especially with time constraints of any IDer in cohort. As I see, IDers are fluctuating with only one IDer for two observers roughly in last few weeks and any bump in that now will see positive trend for IDathon as whole - so recruiting and helping new IDentifers with tutorials as done recently and continuous ambassador webinars or local IRL sessions or accessible photo ID guides by expert IDers for broad things will greatly help overall.
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IDs value are subjective too, so any details on X way of IDing is better is mute personally, including my suggestions :P
but I routinely check recent unknowns for my country but wont bother moving everything out, but just feel value in finding those niche genus/species I learnt recently, but the CV hasnt and when it also has very wrong suggestions as no local lookalike taxa are trained for those yet, and so moving those from unknown to Y level is far more valuable to me to control those negative loops - I also dont like moving from unknown to just kingdom if it also has a higher chance of similarly being stuck in limbo as true unknown so unless I am confident for a better lower levels (say vegetative plants observations kingdom ID vs flowering plants families or genus), but anyway i would love to see “Unknowns 0” for a country or iNat someday lol - there is a 10%ish decrease in unknowns in last few weeks from IDers here in India thanks to all; my city unknowns are at 0.5% and India unknowns are at 1.5% and global unknowns are at 2.7% now.
also These unknown to Z level and annotations have greater value when people start with filtering from bottom to top or experts at some levels for first time. for example if I am learning new species Z1 and I know its type locality and congeners Z2, Z3 around that area, I can search first from Z-genus filter to upwards levels to find possible observations and mappings for these for first time from live photos and if they are firstly not in that large unknown pile it will greatly help at minimum in those filters search again and any discussions in moving things down.
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Probably plants
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/unknown-plantae
or you can pick out the taxon which appeals from the long list
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Sorry I am not sure what about my two-word post you’re referencing here. Maybe you mean to reply to jeanphilippeb?
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Is there any way to filter for observations that you IDed but that have since gained a more accurate ID by someone else?
It could be used to see if you can also refine your own ID and move it to Research Grade!
Well, that’s exactly the point - if all they ever did was sort unknowns into iconic categories (i.e. plant, fungus, insect, etc) that would achieve far less than the much more specifc taxa you suggest. I think the context of my quote has been lost here, which was in reply to some earlier claims that moving unknowns into high level taxa is somehow more productive than, say, moving an observation from genus to species. But an ID at family level or higher would still require the attention of at least two more identifiers to get it out of the needs-id pool, so it just moves the problem elsewhere.
Sorting unknowns into iconic categories can be a good place for inexperienced identifiers to start, because it doesn’t need much prior knowledge. However, no one is born knowing how to reliably identify a white-tailed deer or green anole. How exactly do we persuade people to push themselves to learn new stuff so they can become more productive? Well, one way is to run an ID-A-Thon.
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When you first start, the barrier of “I don’t know what I can do and I’m afraid of messing things up” is really, really high. We want people to jump in and give it a try, without making so many mistakes that they become discouraged or feel embarrassed.
So, for recruiting new identifiers, I think the priority has to be: Start with something that you know. Even if you only know a little, you can probably add some value.
So, (1) pick a wildflower that you know, or look at all the birds in your region (probably some of them are common species), or look up a plant commonly grown in gardens and mark the ones that are obviously cultivated. When in doubt, sorting unknowns into very broad categories like “plant” or “insect” is always an option.
Then, (2) pick a region you’re familiar with, and work your way through the observations in that region. You don’t have to identify everything in the whole world!
And (3) remember that you can always go back and change or remove your ID if you realize you made a mistake.
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In which case, how this is relevant?
Well, in that case, you seem to have totally misunderstood its clearly stated aims, which are to increase the number of active identifiers, along with our overall activity and collective expertise.
Every expert is also a complete novice relative to some taxa. The event lasts a month, not a week, so that should give everyone the opportunity to have fun and try learning something new.
Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet; sapere aude, incipe.
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Since this is about ID and part is about bringing novice identifiers along, what sources do you recommend for your taxa?
I work with fungi in the Pacific Northwest of the US, here are some of mine:
Danny’s DNA Discoveries, https://www.alpental.com/psms/ddd/index.htm constantly updated, heavy on sequencing
Mykoweb, California centric, https://mykoweb.com/CAF/index.html still useful for West coast, updates infrequent
MushroomExpert, https://www.mushroomexpert.com/ More of a North American focus. Note distribution.
North American Cortinarius Collections, https://nacorts.com/ a good, evolving site for Cortinarius
Mushroom Appreciation, https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/ casual style, still technical. I enjoy the descriptions and comparisons.
Articles:
Fungal Systematics and Evolution https://fuse-journal.org/
Also see General below.
Books:
Mushrooms of Cascadia, Seigel and Schwarz
Mushrooms of Cascadia, Beug
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, Trudell and Ammirati
Ascomycete Fungi of North America, Beug
Phaeocollybia of the Pacific Northwest North America, Norvell and Exeter, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255719436_Phaeocollybia_of_Pacific_Northwest_North_America
Ramaria of the Pacific Northwest North America, Exeter, Norvell and Cazares, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255719422_Ramaria_of_the_Pacific_Northwest
Handbook to Strategy 1 Fungal Species in the Pacific Northwest Forest Plan, Castellano et. al. https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr476.pdf
Handbook to Additional Fungal Species of Special Concern in the Northwest Forest Plan, Castellano et. al. https://www.fs.usda.gov/r6/reo/survey-and-manage/downloads/fungi/handbook-fu-pnwgtr572-2003.pdf
Ecology and Management of Commercially Harvested Chanterelle Mushrooms, Pilz et. al. https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr576.pdf
General:
Pubmed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ create an account, set up your taxa and receive notice of new papers
Stork, https://www.storkapp.me/ create an account, set up your taxa and receive notice of new papers
Academia.edu https://www.academia.edu/ create an account, set up your taxa and receive notice of new papers
The Forest Service has thousands of publications many of which are on specific taxa. Search on your taxon and see what pops up https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch
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I’ve been in a pickup that was hit by a white-tailed deer, and I’ve observed green anoles. When I saw the spider on top of a traverse point, I recognized it as Argiope, but I didn’t know the difference between A. aurantia and the other species until that one was identified. As to dogfennel, I saw it for years but didn’t know what it’s called until I observed it or saw an observation (don’t remember which). I just thought “Oh, it’s a one of those.”
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Currently no statistically significant increase in IDs compared to the past two months. We need more IDs!
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If anyone wants to help out with the vast number of misidentified earthworms, here’s the “story so far”: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalists-earthworm-problem-and-how-to-fix-it/70743 and something of an ID guide: https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/thirty_legs/110030-photographing-earthworms-for-inaturalist
There are still around 33k Lumbricus terrestris observations to correct (the “most observed” annelid species by an order of magnitude!) but I expect the majority to be wrong. Even just pushing back tropical worms that cannot be temperate L. terrestris or blurry unidentifiable squiggles to order or subclass would make us worm fixers’ jobs easier! While finer IDs are sometimes possible from photos, most earthworms are only identifiable from microscopic inspection or dissection, so it’s quite likely that the bulk of iNat earthworm observations cannot and should not be identified past these broad groups which do not take specialist training to recognize.
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I think you meant to reply to Jean Philippe, but you replied to Amy instead. You can edit your post to tag him.
(I’m going to delete this later)
But can you tell dogfennel from coastal dogfennel? I only learned there were two species a few years ago.
If anyone wants a ID task, go through Needs ID Erechtites of South America. Dissected leaves and pink flowers with glabrous stem is valerianifolius. If something looks weird(stem is very pubescent, basal leaves only, short leaves, untoothed leaves, etc.), mark at genus and tag me. I’m working on this genus today.
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If you always/normally identify at a higher level - say, family or above - I guess you could filter for ones you’ve reviewed that have IDs below that level. But if you ID at all levels, no, I don’t think so?
I’ve certainly had times where I’ve gone through my old higher-level IDs to see what I can move further down - and found quite a few I could move, so I guess I’ve learned something, or at least grown a bit more confident. I also watch my notifications and try to review my IDs any time a new, lower-level ID comes in. I definitely don’t auto-agree, but sometimes I can either help move something further in the right direction (where there’s a disagreement) or confirm/improve a suggested ID.
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But if you look at the new stats
Daily users - yellow line is identifiers - 14 Dec 6.8K - 15 Dec 8K !
Identifications - for others is green line - 14 Dec 241K - 15 Dec almost 311K !
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Identify observations without ID in project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/unknown-plantae + the sub-projects (not recursively, too many for a single URL):
Dicots + the sub-projects (still not recursively, still too many projects):
Monocots + all the subprojects recursively:
All these links are in the “About” panel of each project:
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…bug report about links in a message on the forum.
yea same! I don’t do a mountain of observations so the notifications are manageable so I constantly check for disagreements and updates. though I don’t agree to IDs that I have no idea about, quality over quantity !!