Hi all! I just checked my profile today, and saw that I am only 170 IDs from 25,000!! I was so excited, and what was even more interesting was that I found it nearly five times the amount of observations I had. This got me wondering: does the majority of the community use iNat in a similar way (Addi…

[image] arboretum_amy: It is also worth noting that forum users do not represent the average iNat user. Honestly, this is the biggest takeaway from this poll for me. We may have already known it, but this poll inadvertently still does a great job showing how big that (mis)representation actua…

Agreed. I had an account and just observed for several years but had very few observations. Some fellow moth enthusiasts recruited me to start IDing to “clean up” some misidentification messes, and after a few hundred thousand IDs, I got way more into the platform and then started observing a lot mo…

Is there an easy way to weight observation counts by how many ranks the ID did refine the the previous state? At the first glance my 25k IDs look like a big number for a layman, but most of them are like Unknown→Aves, Magnoliophyta→Brassicaceae etc. This is just curiosity, it probably doesn’t justif…

I’m definitely a better observer than identifier, but I think identification is important to keep the community working in a healthy way. I try to keep my id:obs ratio above 1:2.

Welcome to the forum, Luis! [image] moyalem: I know I’m a lil newbie here but I’m amazed how most voters have over 10k obs I’m approaching 2 years on the forum and on iNaturalist.org , but I also feel like a n00b, since I’m not a member of The Ten Thousand Club (at least 10k Observations and …

Here are a couple of related threads, although I like the clarity of this thread, because it makes The Ten Thousand Club explicit. But if you want to read hundreds of replies: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/poll-are-you-primarily-an-inat-observer-or-identifier/ (2020 Feb 1; 103 replies) https://f…

i’m careful about keeping my ID counts higher than my obs counts to avoid taking more than i give, but after reading these comments i’m thinking i should start aiming for at least twice as many IDs as observations going forward. some pretty big discrepancies there if 75% of IDs come from 1% of users…

If you usually upload your obs with your own ID - then the ratio is 1.25 If without an ID then 2.5 The ‘and a bit’ covers the ones that need more discussion.

That’s a best practice for a civilian iNatter. One thing this poll makes clear is, most forum users are not civilians! [Screenshot 2026-03-18 at 1.10.19 PM] For our many forum members who are not from North America, above is the technical definition of civilian. I use it in this context to mean s…

IDs vs. Observations: Please Vote!

General

mkanimallover March 18, 2026, 6:04pm 21

Welcome to the forum! Spiders are really cool, and there aren’t too many spider experts out there! Just keep chugging, and you’ll find your ID’s piling up!

Topic		Replies	Views
Poll: Are You Primarily an iNat Observer or Identifier? Nature Talk	102	3871	April 14, 2020
Do you make more observations on iNat or identifications General question	117	1693	February 1, 2025
Little interaction by the community General question	58	4715	January 17, 2022
I realised I was using iNat wrong! General question	69	2825	May 11, 2026
Patience is a virtue General	45	1431	April 4, 2021

IDs vs. Observations: Please Vote!

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