#IdentiFriday is the happiest day of the week

[lynnharper]

By yellow tags, I think peakaytea means jeanphilippeb’s Unknown projects, which have yellow as part of the project banners.

[jasonhernandez74]

@pisum

if you inserted “help others with identifications” after “get help with identifications”, i think that sort of minor change would help to shift the narrative and explicitly plant the seed that anyone can help identify observations.

@pisum

if there’s not a specific Identification page within the app, then it’s unlikely the casual user will even have the idea that they can help other folks identify stuff.

These are really good ideas.

[jasonhernandez74]

Okay, so my last couple days of #IdentiEveryday, I decided to step back from the frustration of identifying global Araceae (where any plant with a large, heart-shaped leaf is “Elephant’s Ear,” and any aquatic plant with small leaves is “Duckweeds”).

I remembered that I have Alistair Hay’s 1990 book, Aroids of Papua New Guinea, so I decided to filter Araceae by location. No location for “New Guinea,” the entire island, but that’s an easy workaround – just do Papua New Guinea, then Indonesian Papua, then West Papua. Only a few pages of observations for this region, and I reviewed them all. This also necessitated a flag to have a new taxon added.

[peakaytea]

@jasonhernandez74

I remembered that I have Alistair Hay’s 1990 book, Aroids of Papua New Guinea

I’ve been thinking that volunteering at the library book sale could get me early review of the Vassar professors’ downsized library guide books, etc. I’ve been really lucky so far!

[DianaStuder]

@jasonhernandez74

a flag to have a new taxon added

Bravo! Those are the most rewarding.

[sedgequeen]

Anybody know garden plants of Panama? Lots and lots of such posts today. (Also bee nests and occasional other animals.) New accounts. Maybe a class?

[peakaytea]

Trying to go through my own observations on my Android. I want to see a list of needs ID. Phone continually locks up due to memory issues.

This kind of thing doesn’t pose problems when I sm responding to IDs in my feed.

When we ask phone-only users to make changes in IDs, I wonder if this poses a problem? Or I may have a very old phone

[arboretum_amy]

My current phone doesn’t do it, but several previous phones of mine used to crash the app every few seconds.

[janetwright]

Isn’t it funny that academics who spend a large chunk of their time as teachers would think it a waste of time to explain their ID to someone. I am sure you are right, @annkatrinrose, that it is an ego thing about being questioned. I am a backdoor “expert” on one taxon (i.e. developed my “expertise” on iNaturalist, nothing to do with my academic credential) and have identified some 30,000 of that taxon. Recently a young whippersnapper reviewed a ton of my IDs and found close to 100 errors (said whippersnapper was nearly always right, too). Day after day I was being hit with my mistakes, and I admit I was annoyed and humbled. But hey, the other 29,900 seemed to be OK, so maybe that is not so bad, and I am now a bit more careful. But if I were a beginning Identifier, that experience might have been more off-putting. I haven’t read all the ideas above about how to engage more identifiers, but for some, making it a more social, reinforcing experience (like this forum, or an identifier bioblitz) could get them over the ego hump. For sure, if people don’t find it rewarding, they won’t do it.

[Ajott]

It is for sure a learning curve to realize that one will not always be right (and does not have to be)… I surely had my issues here in the beginning with being corrected… but for me it was less about my ego and more about shame. In real life imposter syndrome is quite a hazzle for me and after opening up about it I realized how common this feeling is at least among female academics. Maybe at least for some that makes being corrected so hard?

[annkatrinrose]

@janetwright

for some, making it a more social, reinforcing experience (like this forum, or an identifier bioblitz) could get them over the ego hump

I have found with some of the more academic folks posting a comment or question on their observation asking how they can tell the species and which identifying features to watch for gets a better response than putting a disagreeing ID on the observation. Appeal to the teacher in them with a question and give them the chance to reevaluate and possibly correct their own ID (and explain it all to you). It’s receiving a notification saying “X disagrees with Y” that’s the issue for them. Of course it’s hard to guess when to use this approach vs. all the random folks who just post a few things and never return to read any comments.

I’m no stranger to feeling annoyed by corrections either, especially if they are the bump-it-up-without-explanation kind. However, I value the ones that tell me something about additional species in my area and especially those that provide details how to tell them apart. It’s a learning experience in multiple ways. For me, the reward from learning more outweighs the annoyance factor of getting corrected.

Another aspect of this is that we all remember getting our mistakes corrected more than guessing right. Whether it’s ego, shame, or something else that causes it to stick out more in our brains, it is a measurable effect that has been written about in pedagogy papers (example for those interested in reading more). I think most teachers know this and there are plenty of student assignments designed with this in mind. However, some folks just haven’t made the mental transition to seeing themselves as “students” on the receiving end of this when posting IDs on iNat. It helps to shift your viewpoint to seeing disagreements on your IDs as part of a learning process and an opportunity to ask questions and not as being outed for being wrong.

[jasonhernandez74]

@annkatrinrose

Of course it’s hard to guess when to use this approach vs. all the random folks who just post a few things and never return to read any comments.

Or the ones who are more active than their number of uploads would suggest. I’m still at less than 1000 observations after three years, and I hope that people aren’t taking that to mean that I don’t read my notifications.

[DianaStuder]

I check for the ‘last active’ date.
That is what matters.
And then that people respond - I know you react when I @mention you.

[vreinkymov]

I think you mentioned elsewhere that you don’t normally take more than a few observations of species you’ve already see. Helminthoteca echioides comes to mind, but I can’t find the forum post. Maybe folks who have a higher observation count have dozens of observations for each species?

[lynnharper]

It’s about four and a half months till the 2024 City Nature Challenge and there are around 39,700 true Unknown observations left from the 2023 CNC. Yes, I’m foolish enough to try, yet again, to clean up Unknowns from a previous CNC before the next CNC. Here’s the link I’m going to work on, if anyone wants to go crazy with me: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown&order=asc&identified=false&project_id=146322

Wish me luck!

[DianaStuder]

Still in the Great Southern Bioblitz till 14 Dec cutoff for IDs.

Then the residue before CNC.

[lynnharper]

Together, we shall mop up behind the messy masses.

[tiwane]

@pisum

i think the main challenge isn’t crafting a single message that folks will understand and can be applied everywhere. instead, i think the challenge is to identify all the places and ways (documentation, system design, etc.) where identification barely mentioned or not mentioned at all, and then make small changes to improve each of these situations.

Thanks, I think this is a really helpful way to look at it, I’ll be thinking about it. Since I’m working on a new help site, I plan on adding some how-tos for using identify to contribute where you can (eg how to restrict results by taxonomic level). I’ll note that people can add tutorials here if they want as well, it would be great to have those as resources.

@pisum

for example, instead of highlighting noteworthy observations, it might be nice to occasionally highlight noteworthy identifications / identification chains. (this is sometimes done in the context of a noteworthy observation, but it would be nice to show examples of great identifications / comments in an otherwise ordinary observation.)

I had Ken-ichi build me a tool to try and surface some of these (I found this mantid observation with it, although the actual ID discussion isn’t too detailed), but they’re a bit more difficult than finding faved observations. If anyone sees cool, collaborative IDs/ID discussions I’d be happy to promote them.

@pisum

when you all coordinate with CNC coordinators each year, maybe ask them to think about the identification side of things (and recruit identifiers in addition to observers)?

I know this is something the organizers discuss, but I’m not sure how much it’s emphasized.

@arboretum_amy

I was told a very old version of the app had taxa icons, a long time ago. I don’t know why they were removed.

It was removed when computer vision was added. I always liked having this functionality there, but the group decision was to remove it. I think, though, that there’s a good chance it’ll be back at some point.

[jasonhernandez74]

@lynnharper

Here’s the link I’m going to work on, if anyone wants to go crazy with me:

A full page of almost all audio was what greeted me. It seemed daunting, but even in unfamiliar places like Taiwan or Italy, it isn’t that hard to tell if it is a cricket, a frog, or a bird. If it sounds like a songbird, it’s a passerine.

[That_Bug_Guy]

I’ll see if I can help!