Announcing a 2-day ID-Blitz, December 10 and 11 (UTC). This is a great opportunity to identify observations in a collaborative environment, with a chance to work with and support other iNat identifiers. You do not need to have previous experience at identifying.
Sign up is simple, just join the project here at least 24 hours before the start of the event (by December 8, midnight UTC.)
You may remember our previous ID-a-thon events; this is a shorter, less-competitive version.
In the spirit of collaboration, results will be reported for the group as a whole, not as competitive rankings. We will message you privately to tell you how many IDs you made during the event.
As we get closer to the event, check the project page for mentoring and team-up opportunities.
We will be focusing on IDing unknowns and observations currently at Kingdom level, but all efforts at IDing are welcome and will be tracked in the project results.
As we get closer to the start of the event, we will post links that you can use to find observations in the focus categories.
We will also have a collaborative ID link, where you can see the IDs made by other members of the Blitz, and work on improving IDs in areas where you have knowledge and experience.
Who can join?
Anyone! There is no requirement or limit on identification experience. Those of you who are beginners are not only welcome, but encouraged to join! We plan to have mentoring opportunities and team-ups to help those looking for more input to improve their ID skills.
What do I get from participating?
This event is purely for fun. Its goal is to onboard and encourage new identifiers as well as celebrate and encourage those of you who already identify on a regular basis.
You’ll be part of a little community all learning together. :)
Ohboyohboyohboy, I love an excuse to be obsessed with something for a few days!
So, let me get this straight: when we make an ID during this time, we need to add it to this project so you can figure out how many IDs we all made, right?
Currently, there are over 470,000 Unknowns worldwide on iNat (that’s including bacteria and Life observations; I forget how to exclude those). That might, just might, be enough to keep us all busy and out of trouble for those two days. ;-)
Please not add every single observation to the project! Only those few which are most interesting. The counting will be done with other methods. See the project FAQ page for more details.
You can try using the Unknowns and State of Matter Life Project(shameless plug) as your base query and exclude Life with the following query https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=97585+&without_taxon_id=48460&place_id=any - currently at 417,770 observations. I have tried to exclude many of the known unknowns. There are also 24 species in this project that are ungrafted for various reason - I was trying to keep on top of that by excluding and counter identifying (such as when it is at suggested ID Genus Phytoplankton) but I was on a road trip and otherwise engaged.
Here’s a question for the API experts among us: across the globe, where is the highest density of Needs ID observations?
If that’s an easy question (not easy for me!), here’s another: where is the highest density of Needs IDs per observer? (Since some places have much higher densities of iNat observers.)
Feel free to use political units or some grid underlay or just squint at the map (that’s my method).
by the way I do hope to write up something for conclusions / feedback, I was severely ill on Sunday and spent today also recovering. Tomorrow I’m pretty busy, but I should be able to pull something together.
I’ve already privately asked for feedback, but if there’s any more, or questions, please comment.
This pales compared to your work but again a visual density of needs ID of known Kingdoms disregarding Unknowns and State of Matter Life and not per observer.
) but I was on a road trip and otherwise engaged.
