I was curious, so here’s the stats. As of today, 106 users have at least 100 identifications (up to 700!) per day in 2021. Impressive, no? Even if you’re really fast, that’s at least an hour a day you’re choosing to help strangers around the world. Thank you to everyone, no matter how many you do!
You mean identifications, right?
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thanks
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100 ids is 3 pages, so if you id something easy it’s more like 20 minutes. So you can ask yourself why we still have ider problem.)
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I think users who have IDs/observation ratios > 1 should have profile icons automatically adorned with a 1-pixel yellow halo. Just a little visual acknowledgement of their contributions.
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Quality over quantity too. I so much appreciate the identifiers who (copypasta) comment ‘quadricolor not aloides - has no white margin’ That helps me each time I weigh up quadricolor vs aloides in future.I can click thru the Lachenalias blooming now - but the yellow halo belongs not to me ;~)
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I have not been able to do three pages of moth ID’s in 20 minutes. I find two things slow me down - filling in the annotations and explaining misidentifications. Perhaps there are no easy ID’s in the Noctuidae!
EDIT I just went to the Feltia herilis page, one of the easiest of the Feltia spp. to identify, and can see on one page about half of them are wrongly identified. Sigh.
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It really depends on those actions too, but only a few iders add annotations, it would be cool if people would just add ids!
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Depends on the quality… some people seem to just ‘agree’ with ID’s to get stats whether they know they’re correct or not.
I “stay in my lane” and only ID Birds, mammals, reptiles, Orchids and native flora in my Region because I’ve been studying them for the last 15 years.
Though sometimes it is useful to make a(n educated) guess on stagnant observations… best way to get an expert to ID is to be wrong! 
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This can be intimidating for new users! I know everyone doesn’t need 15+ years experience to contribute IDs, but many choose to do nothing and defer to experts.
Then the user agrees with your guess … 
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I do it in various ways. Sometimes I just add ID, sometimes a standard copy-paste note, like “this one is not IDable without seeing also the underside”, or “this species does not occur in Europe”, sometimes I add a lengthhier note, but rarely, because it often happens like today: I corrected a misidentification and added explanation of the differences between the two species. The user thanked me and kept their erroneous ID. I may be becoming grumpy, but it will be a longer time until I add a longer annotation next time (if not asked). Anyway, with annotations or without them, it takes me much longer than 20 minutes to go through three pages of observations.
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I share your frustration. I try to educate people, but find myself repeating the same thing over and over. Part of my problem is that I don’t always encounter the same mis-identification, so it takes me a while to identify what people have mis-id’d, then writing out the explanation.
A question though - where do you store the standard copy-paste notes? I use Windows based software, and have tried using Word, but find that the links don’t always come through.
This is mainly an identification frustration. It’s my preferred ‘role’ on iNat, but some days it drives me nuts! I guess it comes with the nit-picking that drives identifiers.
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Yeah, I’ve gotten pretty fast at typing what the field marks are when people ask, most people say thank you and some ask follow up questions which is great. My favorite though was I guy who asked how a super common very easy species was ID’d (so he doesn’t know), and when I told him he proceeded to expound to me about how variable field marks are and therefore not reliable. I love being lectured by people who have never read any books on the topic and have no field experience.
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I’ve never had that happen! Depending on the day, I’d fly into a rage, though (this is one of those days.)
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I just have a word file with standard phrases in a directory called inaturalist :-)
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To speed it up, I recommend either breaking it up into annotations in a separate session from id’s, or break it up within a session by going through the same page of results sequentially. In the latter case in the Identify modal, that means you can stay on the id pane for one pass through a page, then stay on the annotation pane for the other pass.
Beeftext tool, https://beeftext.org/
For example this output takes me 3 letters to type:
you have variable species per photo
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-fix-your-observation-with-photos-of-multiple-species/15096
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/como-arreglar-tus-observaciones-con-fotos-de-multiples-especies/24540
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I don’t have 15+ years identifying moths. I do not consider myself an ‘expert’, but I have experience. If I don’t know, I’ll say that and perhaps consult more experienced users. Often I look at a users profile before making a comment - with new users I am more likely to add more information in the hope that it will be a learning experience.
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Thank you for that information! I had not thought of doing the two tasks separately. The switching back and forth between categories is part of the annotation delay. And I will investigate the copy/paste option. That’s one of the reasons I love the Forum!
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It took me 2 hours to get 67 IDs
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?page=100&per_page=8&order=asc&place_id=125100&taxon_id=47125&without_taxon_id=47162&lrank=superfamily
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Identification time is incredibly variable. I check all Lucanidae (Coleoptera) and all insects from Nicaragua. Sometimes take a minute, sometimes need to take books, and look for what a species could be, or just to remember the name. If I do it each day, takes me one hour or two. If I let it for 3 or 4 days, it takes me the full day. I try to promote iNaturalist in Nicaragua and most of what people hope, after sharing nice pictures, is getting an identification, so part of the promotion is trying to give identifications. I also resend ( @ ) some call for identifications to some collegues.
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