What Bobby said:
Reminded me of a recent post by David:
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We are discouraged from using the forum for unconstructive complaints.
If there are specific users who are repeatedly doing this, it would likely be more productive (i.e., be more effective at reducing the incidence of this problem long term) to point out to those users that there are notes or additional photos in the observation in question, or to gently suggest e.g. that you would value it if they would slow down a bit to check which organism you are interested in before they suggest an ID.
I realize that there are a handful of IDers who are inclined to skip looking at all the photos or reading notes because they believe that this will allow them to ID more efficiently. If this practice is resulting in wrong IDs, it seems like it would be valuable to tell them this, because they are unlikely to change their behavior unless they have a good reason to do so (i.e., evidence that their current approach is causing problems).
For what it’s worth, this too goes both ways: I have occasionally mis-ID’d observations before noticing the observer’s note because the observer had uploaded the observation with a broad ID and the subject of interest was barely noticeable in the photo unless you knew it was there. When I suggested to the observer that it would be helpful if they could crop photos, I was told essentially that this doesn’t fit with their workflow.
So a bit of mutual thinking about the needs of other users would go a long way towards reducing frictions in both directions.
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This is the main reason that I don’t identify from the thumbnail view “agree” buttons, where notes are not visible. I encourage others to do the same.
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This!
Unfortunately depending on your workflow notes are not easily visible for the IDer. In the identify tab you won’t see the notes that one adds while uploading.. however, one CAN see the comments easily, so they are much more visible.
I definately have been guilty of not taking those notes into account for that reason. I also have been guilty of not looking at every picture, especially when the first one seems pretty comprehensive (but usually the mixed species observation are more of an issue on this).
In a lot of those cases a @tag and short note to me fixed the issue fast and easy.
.. but they can and will happen. I am for example on a good run biting away on a single genus with still a 5 digit number of needs ID remaining.. on good days I will do several 100 IDs a day. I am not spending too much time on a single observation to have a chance of ever be “done” and I am doing some mistakes as well. I still think, if I did 500 IDs and maybe 10 are not correct, that in general my work is of value.. if you are the one I did my mistakes to and you realize - sorry… but great! Tag@ me and we’ll fix it! Or tag@ someone else and overrule me if you feel I am unreasonably stubborn. But I am not sure if discouraging IDs/IDers is the best way to go, because I am not sure how many people join you in that feeling that going without any IDs is “being better off”. It’s already a pretty long wait for some observations as it is.
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Well, it is a trade-off … and it depends on how you see it. I do thumbnail agrees on observations I feel are telling enough even in this size.. I might miss the occasional multiple species observations, “but I meant to observe something else”-observation or maybe even am plain wrong because I missjudged the picture… but in my experience, most of those cases will resolve themselfs given some time and some more eyes on it.
I can for sure be much faster in IDing the easy stuff away from the pool this way.. let alone someone with a slow connection
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it’s really not asking a lot of observers. Frankly, the expectation that iders explain every single time they disagree is asking a lot of iders
A person might have a couple of their things ided, meanwhile the indentifier is trying to move through dozens or hundreds of observations and every explanation they have to write to a person that, ultimately, is going to ignore, is a waste of time.
People complain there aren’t enough iders, well, let the iders save time.
(This rant brought to you after like, six hours of looking at blurry top-down shots of rotted polypores)
EDIT: But also, I check notes and all pictures. Just sayin’
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I’ll admit it - I’ve missed notes on occasions. But if the observer then tags me in the observation and explains my error, I will unhesitatingly withdraw my mistake.
It would be very frustrating to have someone misidentify your observation then ignore your polite requests for them to revisit it. That said, I get hundreds of notifications a day, and I might occasionally have missed someone tagging me. I hope I haven’t, but it could have happened.
Try tagging them again? Tagging others to support your side of the ID battle?
I see you have over 12,000 observations, and have done 2,000 identifications. You studied entomology in college, so probably have skills that are greatly in need on iNaturalist. Please consider doing more IDs yourself. (this post was meant to be a reply to @nilshelstrom).
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Granted, I am a newbie on iNat, and casual at best, but I think they can be useful, at least to me. Going over why this is a missed strengthens what I know and can lead me to focus on a specific or species that maybe hadn’t been considered. Just MHO.
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Ooh, that seems like a good idea. I don’t think moderate- to high-volume IDers could do what they do without using the thumbnail view. But quick, convenient access to the information that an observation includes a note seems very useful! Maybe this has been a requested feature already?
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I occasionally do it locally for unmistakable species(Artemisia vulgaris, Asclepias syriaca, Rosa rugosa, etc.) but usually not.
Unless you are identifying ospreys or something similar it really isn’t good to do so.
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From five years ago!
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That’s awesome - 1046 observations submitted, 529 different species. That must have been a really fun day!
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It was one of the Socially Distant Bioblitzes during Covid. I haven’t come close since, with my best day since then a “paltry” 711 observations. Since 9/6/20 I’ve gotten halfway only 8 times!!!
If I didn’t encounter those wild dogs in Greece I might have cracked 1000 that day.
Best to stay on topic though.
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This is an issue with even some professionals and top identifiers.
It’s an annoyance, but a relatively mild one.
If it’s something specific in an image I’ll sometimes edit the image to highlight the organism or feature (eg. adding a thin circle or adding an inset close-up).
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I look at the current ID, looking for unknown, high-level taxa, or any of a few genera or families where I’m likely to be able to identify something (white-tail and mule deer, tomato, coquí outside PR, chicken, marmorated bug, Chinese bushclover, dogfennel). Then I look at the thumbnail. I don’t identify it, even to agree, without looking at the popup, and usually I look at the images full-size.
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Well, I don’t know if I qualify as a “high-volume IDer” (the number on my profile represents hours spent on iNat rather than speed or efficiency), but I have never used the thumbnail view for any actual IDing and I can’t imagine finding it convenient to do so.
For those of you who do this, what advantage does IDing from the thumbnail view offer over clicking on the observation and using keyboard shortcuts (“a” to agree, arrow keys to move to next observation)?
I do a variety of types of IDing (refining observations with broad IDs; RGing a few common, distinctive species; working on my taxon of interest which has a high rate of mis-IDs and is difficult to ID from photos). The only thing I use the thumbnail view for is skimming to determine which observations I want to look at more closely – that is, if I am doing an activity where I will only end up interacting with a few observations per page it makes more sense to use the thumbnail view to select them rather than paging through every observation in the set.
For virtually everything else I do, I need to see the entire observation:
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Because my searches typically include taxa higher than species, in a significant percentage of cases the current ID needs to be refined or corrected, so I can’t use the thumbnail view anyway. (This does not only apply to difficult taxa or broad IDing of observations sitting at order or family. Even if the species is locally distinctive – say, Helminthotheca echioides or Chelidonium majus – some observations will start out with a genus ID because the user doesn’t realize that there are no other relevant species in the genus.)
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A lot of what I ID requires seeing small details and the thumbnails simply aren’t large enough. In some cases it isn’t enough even when I have opened the observation and clicked on the magnifying glass; I need to open the photo in a new tab and enlarge it.
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If I am IDing Xylocopas I am also adding annotations and often comments (“females can’t be distinguished without a clear view of the head and antennae”).
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In addition, I have learned that for bees is absolutely essential to look at all the photos because with fast-moving flower visitors it is fairly common for people to end up with a mixture of different individuals in their photos and these individuals are not always the same species.
Finally, in a more general sense, I find it mentally and ergonomically more appealing to open up the observation. I can visually focus on just one observation at a time and if it is something simple where I only need to agree with the existing ID, typing “a” feels easier than moving the mouse and clicking it.
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By the way, skimming a few of your recent observations I do not see cases where the ID seems to have gotten off track because of IDers not reading notes. I do see one observation that you appear to have deleted and re-uploaded because of such a misunderstanding.
May I suggest that you not do this? Most mistakes can be corrected by communicating with the people involved. When you delete and reupload, past discussion is also lost. Often this discussion is useful, even if it is discussion about a misunderstanding. If someone misinterpreted the observation once, it is quite possible that another user coming across the new observation will make the same mistake. Whereas if there are comments on the observation, this can help signal to users that there is something going on and they should take a closer look before suggesting an ID.
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I make hundreds of IDs each day and once in a while I miss the notes. I always appreciate when the observer can comment back that I missed something so I can withdraw or correct my ID.
The notes are so small at the top. I wish iNat could do a better job of making them more visible (larger, different color, or a highlighted bar over them…a highlight over the top would probably make them the most visible). That would help. I try to watch for notes, but sometimes I just miss them…especially if just one or two words like “on plant” or something like that.
Sometimes I notice the notes more if they are in the actual ID.
Again, it is not to be irritating to the observers…just when some of us are IDing hundreds of observations a day, we are bound to periodically make an error like this because we are moving quickly, espeically if we are in iNat’s “Identify” mode.
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@nilshelstrom that is discarding the previous time and effort of any other identifiers on that obs.
@wendyjegla IDing using just the thumbnail? Missing - multiple pictures of various sp, placeholder, notes, comments, projects. observation fields - any info the observer might have supplied beyond the first thumbnail - and generating some problems. I prefer to use Identify and keyboard shortcuts.
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