I’m running a project and noticed I have some observations on there that I don’t think will contribute because they will not be able to become research grade. Is it appropriate for me to delete them to raise our projects % of research grade observations?
If they’re your observations you can do whatever you want with them. I guess I’m wondering why the % of research grade observations in the project is important to you? Just cause something isn’t research grade doesn’t necessarily meant it’s not useful.
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This is a tricky question because your phrasing, “will not be able to become research grade,” encompasses a number of situations. If an observation, or the quality of an image is just so poor that it is hard to even recognize the intended organism, then perhaps that is deletable. But I would caution against deleting observations which show an organism reasonably well (not necessarily crisp, diagnostic images) and for which our current state of knowledge indicates the organism can’t be assigned to species level or there may not be expertise currently in the iNat community which could address the ID. Both of those situations are obviously subject to change!
There may be other situations you are thinking about as well. Some more detail or examples might help.
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if other users have contributed identifications or comments (or other improvements to your observation), i would not delete such an observation (because that would also delete the other users’ contributions, effectively throwing their efforts into the trash).
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It depends on what the observations are, but casuals can still be useful. I teach, and so sometimes I use nice photos from casual observations to show a good example of the organism or to highlight an ID trait or unusual feature. It’s also true that just because something can’t be identified now, it can never be identified, so many times it’s worth waiting.
I recently put together a project for interesting, fun, and otherwise worthwhile casual observations ( https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/casually-cool ) so that observers can show off their neat casual finds and so that I can keep track of good stuff potentially useful for teaching.
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If your obs have IDs from others, it is inappropriate to delete their work.
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I agree with many of the other comments here. The value of “Research Grade” is frequently debated here on the Forum. At its most basic level it just means that two or more people agree on an ID with no dissenting votes. It’s nice to get that kind of confirmation (if it’s correct—though it might not be) but it doesn’t mean the non-RG observations aren’t valuable. In fact, they might be VERY valuable. As a field botanist, I frequently scroll through plant observations from an area I’m familiar with. If I come across a non-RG observation I can’t identify, especially if the photos are good, I’m suddenly much more interested than if it was yet another RG observation of something identifiable. Who knows—the non-RG one might be a new record for the area, a rare species, or even something new to science. I am likely to head into the field to find the plants in person, get my own photos, and collect a specimen if possible. If that observation had been deleted because it didn’t reach RG, I wouldn’t know the plant existed or where to find it!
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The goal isn’t necessarily to reach research grade. This is part of where the ‘gamification’ aspect of iNat fails.
The goal is to record life and get people engaged in their natural surroundings.
In terms of “use”, often genus or even family level observations are just as “useful” as species level observations. It depends on what a person is looking at when doing their research, assuming they are doing research. It’s entirely common for certain types of biological research to only be interested in genus or family level identifications, which means that observations that “have no way of becoming research grade” are not at all a hindrance to research.
And, as other have said, it’s really difficult to tell what is actually able to be identified or not to species level. Some people are extremely good at figuring this out.
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Just last week I identified a plant where not one part of the photo was in focus. I’m absolutely sure that the ID is correct because I see the plant nearly every day and it was (albeit blurry) flowering. Driving home at 80-100km’s per hour in my car I ID plants that are whizzing past – yeah I probably should be concentrating on the road rather than plants but I can’t help it. So, I’m not sure that “will not be able to become research grade” is right. I can’t ID some of these plants using a key but I certainly can using something else. I think birders have a name for it… Jizz or something
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GISS general impression shape and size
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And also - when I ask why is it that? - it just is!
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Well, if it’s because it is impossible to ID down to the species level, and not because it is casual, then in fact it is possible for it to reach RG, by marking a box that the identification can’t be further improved ;) But as far as I know, there is some controversy about using this box, as RG observations are less “visible” to identifiers and it might be the case that someone could improve id (now or in the future) but will not see this observation because it doesn’t “need ID”
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I just had a look at the plant I IDed. Using “conventional” methods I’m not even certain I could ID it to family. I certainly couldn’t do it using a key. It’s a blurry photo. But the ID I made to species level is correct. So maybe us plant people have GISS as well :)
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We do! I’m a plant people.
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GISS - general impression of size and shape, comes from WW2 scouts identifying aeroplanes and the term spread to other fields.
Very few carry a tripod and professional gear to take photos while out in the field. A lot of times even good photos miss important details. iNat is not a “Photo of the year competition” not even e-bird, we ID the total of the observation not just the photo. What one is lacking in pixels or photo quality can be easily compensated by describing features that are not clearly visible.
The other path to research grade is people agreeing that the ID is the best it can be - this does not stop a fresh set of eyes adding a lower level ID later.
(Edit: I just noticed I did not reply to last in the conversation, sorry for repeating what’s been already said)
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Thank you, I just joined. Added two photos that are somewhat funny. They are not casual, is it OK?
Thank you everyone for your honest responses! I’m going to keep my observations up!
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Cute birds. Since the project is “casual”, we can keep the rules lax, so they’re fine. Just try to add more casual observations than otherwise.
Looking at Captive/Cultivated, sorted by Favorites, they may not be useful to researchers, but some are at least entertaining and beautiful.
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To echo what others have said, “research grade” doesn’t necessarily mean anything as far as usefulness of the observation to researchers. Your typical professional researcher looking for relevant observations of a target organism will be able to tell themselves if the ID on the observation is correct, whether it’s listed on iNat as “research grade” or “needs ID”. I’ve personally been contacted numerous times by researchers looking for details or samples of organisms from observations I’ve posted that were still at “needs ID” level which we both agreed were correctly ID’d. And of course there are undoubtedly tens of thousands of observations labeled “research grade” that are incorrectly ID’d and would be immediately recognized as such by a taxon expert combing through iNat data for their research. So while “research grade” is a nice designation to get on one’s observations, it doesn’t translate into the observation being any more or less useful to an actual researcher. And there are absolutely non-RG observations which have contributed to published research, and RG-observations that would never pass the scrutiny of a researcher looking over them. I say put up all the data you can, and let others decide what they can and can’t use for their research purposes.
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