Identication with no comments

Have you ever encounter someone just giving an incorrect ID in your observation without leaving any comments? I think it is quite annoying recently.

Occasionally. I suspect (at least in my cases) they honestly believe it’s the correct ID. I have seen others enter a comment @-ing the person and asking (nicely) what the characteristics were that led them to choose a different ID. Sometimes it starts a really good conversation. Sometimes it goes nowhere at all :-) Are you an expert on certain taxa that you feel are being inappropriately changed? Sorry - couldn’t see your profile so I have to ask :-)

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CNC has meant a lot of very busy identifiers, as there is only a week (?) to get the IDing done if it is to count for the CNC final totals. Also, they may feel it doesn’t need explaining. You can be the one to ask “why”, and it may help others learn too!

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The AI suggestions often lead to misidentifications, at least for insects. I think some people may have unrealistic expectations of the AI.

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I am not an expert at all, but I am interested in reptiles :)
I do sometimes get wrong, but what makes me frustrated is after I had some feedback, nothing changed at all. They just do not care.
What makes me more unpleasant is someone corrected my ID, but I have reservations so I did not change mine, and they just call somebody else to overwrite my ID, rather than saying anything. I finally changed my ID, but only after I checked journals online!

Those are not a CNC observations, but you are right, that’s the only thing I can do :)

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Sure, I think it is better to have an ID from traditional method before submitting an observation

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Regardless of whether they are CNC observations or not, many of the identifiers that would normally be identifying them are very busy with IDing observations for the CNC, so they have little time spare to put to lengthy explanations for everything they do. Most of these identifiers are here volunteering their time and expertise, so maybe meet them half way, and if you want reasons for their IDs then ask, CNC or not…

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I have a current problem with an repeat observation of mine of an invasive specimen being controlled manually
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/24579716

I ID’d it ap upload, it was confirmed by an amateur fern expert, then I had IDs from two knowledgeable people of another fern in the image. (That fern was also important to the observation of the invasive one, as its growth showed how the invasive had been suppressing it).

This is no doubt due to IDing from the Identify feature, which I rarely use because you can’t see the Description and any comments. Perhaps if someone is going to disagree with an existing ID they should have to at least be viewing the Description and comments?

off topic here but its relevant to this thread - I have not been able to get a response so far from either of them, so I would like to use the Opt out of Community ID feature for this obs. Where do I find that? I’ve looked a number of times but haven’t found it.
EDIT - I found the turn-off Community ID button - top right of obs! So obvious (sheepish grin)

EDIT AGAIN- but now its Needs ID, even though it has two confirmations of my ID. Any fix for that?

This is a problem resulting from your approach. One cannot necessarily expect iNaturalist to accommodate every possible approach, and it doesn’t accommodate your approach very well.

My advice is that it may be best for your approach for you to opt out of community ID, and I don’t know why you would need your obs to be “ResearchGrade”, so just don’t worry about that.

Thanks Stephen, I agree and will do that for obs that are likely to require the odentifier to absorb more than the image

I’m not sure if you can opt out of community ID on a case by case basis?

yes, it says “For this observation”. Otherwise I would have destoryed the IDs of 10000 other obs haha, which has not happened

This thread is relevant to that issue: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/agree-button-on-identify-thumbnails/1597

It has to do with the thumbnails you get to first on the Identify tool, but you can enter beyond the thumbnails where you can see the description and comments.

Thanks paloma, yes I do View each obs when i do a bit of Identifying, but it is very slow as it requires getting back to Identify again. One day I must make a Search for myself instead.

Jenny, you can click on the thumbnail and get the Identify modal, which gives a summary of the obs (including first part of the description and comments/IDs made by others), and then you can click “view observation” to see the Observation page. To make things easier for you, in the identify modal you can use the left and right arrow to move between the observations on the thumbnail page, but if you change some things on the observation (like marking it as captive), then you need to click a blank part of the page to get the left and right arrow functionality back. Instead of clicking the “view observation” link, try a ctrl-click so that it opens in a new tab. Then when you close that tab, you switch straight back to the tab you were in before you clicked it!

ok thanks Mark, I will try following that through

nope, way too many clicks for me:) Maybe its to do with my eyesight as well…For some reason, it’s not a pleasant experience for me to be looking at that little window in the middle of the screen. fwiw, I’m using a 23" monitor. And progressive lenses:)

But I do seethat tthe Description is actually there. Why did I think it wasn’t? Perhaps none of the obs I had been looking at had descriptions? Plus the fact that my obs received several IDs lately where people’s IDs or comments or questions showed they had not read the Description.

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