I don’t worry too much about this because I prefer to focus on the observations that can be ID’d and how they’re useful. However . . . .
Yes, you’re right, the unidentifiable do accumulate. I see this when identifying – or trying to identify – observations from two or three years ago (in taxa/places I can expect to ID). The percent unidentifiable will only grow. It’s frustrating, though not too much of a discouragement to IDers who work in the last year or two.
Right now, the best we can do is mark “No, it can’t be improved.” I hate to do this in most cases because I think, “I can’t ID it but maybe someone else can.” With observations that have waited a long time, though, we should probably click that button more often.
6 Likes
The urge to tidy! Yep, that’s me (but not vacuuming).
You are right that it doesn’t hurt the observation if it never makes it to RG (or to Casual, for that matter). In fact, I bet some observers would prefer that their observations remain at Needs ID rather than reach RG at the genus level.
I have a lot of faith in the computer vision, too, but I also see many observations that fool the CV, even here where the CV is often correct. I think having human identifiers check on things is the best way to go.
4 Likes
I am often tempted to mark something as “can’t be improved” but I know very well that my ID skills are limited, so usually I don’t, except on my own observations. And maybe older observations of, say, a Sphagnum at a distance.
2 Likes
Yes it is. But I have convinced myself it is okay to move on - to an obs where I CAN ID.
That urge to make order out of chaos - led me to the Pre-Maverick Project.
And identifying African Unknowns - where I have a backlog about 800 (first one I see is 3 pictures of the same plant - spread across 3 obs - I see copypasta in my future)
3 Likes
I may be overly positive about the future, but I don’t worry to much about it. Ten years is a lot of time, and maybe a “new Jane” will start identifying stuff and be sure enough to agree to the “original Jane” ID. Or maybe someone expert enough will show up and know that there is a common Pine and a less common Pine in the area, that can’t be distinguished with bark alone ? Who knows ?
When searching through old obs, it is obvious that only the difficult ones are left. But being able to tidy up a bit what’s left is kinda rewarding, it’s like finding a hidden gem that no one found before you. I guess it’s a bit of a mindset, but you can only be “that” perfectionist when IDing, else it is really too frustrating.
5 Likes
Decided to work on Primrose-leaved Violet since it is blooming right now. Lots of new obs but looking at old ones too.
3 Likes
How long will that be in AI years? We don’t even know what the scale will be yet…
1 Like
That may be taxon-specific. I come across a lot of old observations that I can easily “Agree,” and I suspect it is a case of them being too quickly buried under new ones.
Or, you may be looking at even older ones than I am.
5 Likes
I’ve been plinking away at Australia’s unknowns, and there’s definitely a lot of easy IDs that have been sitting in there for months (or years!) just because they happened to get buried. Birds, spiders, big showy mushrooms, etc… They’re just hidden in amongst all the plants and school projects that have taken dozens of photos of dirt. :D
9 Likes
there too - the obvious ones - which have been hidden in very broad IDs which slide into limbo. I target those (for my location)
2 Likes
I work on Pre-Mavericks, too, and on the Unknowns. And then I go work on an individual plant species and its genus in my region and then in neighboring states or provinces. And then I browse through all of the most recent uploads for my region and confirm the easy mammals or Monarchs or Wood Frogs (not birds, though; there are enough bird identifiers). Once in a while, I’ll look at Plantae at the Kingdom level in my region; sometimes I can pull a few down to species or genus, or mark as cultivated and push them to Casual.
And then repeat, over and over. Spring is coming soon here, though, and then I won’t have time for all this identifying; I’ll have to be out photographing and uploading my own observations.
For all my whining, there are much worse ways I could be spending my days.
5 Likes
It may depend of the number of people “active” on that taxon or the area it is true. When I say “old”, I’m thinking about obs that are 5 years old or older. On most of the searches I did, there was some “easy stuff” left, but it was mostly unsolved conflicts, garden plants or really hard to tell apart species. I consider in that case only obs that got a finer ID first (family or genus), because for the others it is easier to get “stuck” in the limbo if they are not refined on time. Out of curiosity, what time frame did you have in mind ?
For stuff that was posted in 2021 and after, it is true that some of really easy to identify obs got buried in the masses, especially in area where identifiers are less active, and very broad ID can also stay there for forever until someones is doing broad/ based on location ID.
3 Likes
That depends on what comes up. If I’m going in ascending order, the time frame is whatever is the oldest observation. Sometimes, I will find easy ones even as old as 5–7 years, especially if I am doing one person’s observations. Some people have, for example, multiple plant observations, for which they provided initial IDs that somehow just never got seconded.
3 Likes
I see a lot of really old easy to ID plant obs. A lot of people don’t go through old stuff with an ID such as Dicots assuming everything left is hard to ID stuff.
Here are a few from 2018 I just found and IDed to species in just a few minutes:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11659903
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17950096
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17387416
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17939389
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17905730
^this last one is stuck at flowering plants due to monocot/dicot disagreement if anyone wants to help with that
2 Likes
Now that last observation is at genus, at least.
The last few days I’ve been going through Sambucus in Ontario (maybe 1500 Needs ID observations? so many!) and I’ve found several older observations that were easy to ID to species. If I’m IDing a particular species, I routinely look at all of the Needs ID observations for that species in my region/state/province of choice. Often enough, there are perfectly good older observations that can reach Research Grade with one or sometimes two IDs.
4 Likes
I got a couple of them to RG.
3 Likes
multi-species observations needing the DQA mark, unless the observer did fix them
(don’t forget to take off your default place if needed/desired)
Batch 1 COMPLETE
Batch 2 COMPLETE
Batch 3 RG ones reviewed, Needs ID ones still not reviewed
Batch 4
Batch 5
Batch 6
Batch 7
Batch 8
Batch 9
Batch 10
Batch 11
Batch 12
Batch 13
Batch 14
Batch 15
Batch 16
Batch 17
Batch 18
Batch 19
Batch 20
Batch 21
(more links in another post: I hit a character limit.)
2 Likes
Did you find these by searching for certain comments?
Peeled out the African ones including Batch 9 (note to self in case you update links there)
10 to 18 Africa done
19 to 21 also.
Someone has used the new DQA. Then deleted their account? As I open the obs to apply the DQA … their previous click cancels itself. Haunting.
I did run into a character limit, so here’s part 2
multi-species observations needing the DQA mark, unless the observer did fix them
(don’t forget to take off your default place if needed/desired)
Batch 1 COMPLETE
Batch 2 COMPLETE
Batch 3 (RG ones complete)
Batch 4
Batch 5
Batch 6
Batch 7
Batch 8
Batch 9
Batch 10
Batch 11
Batch 12
Batch 13
Batch 14
Batch 15
Batch 16
Batch 17
Batch 18
batch 19
batch 20
batch 21