I encounter this, from the uploader’s perspective, every time I add a large volume of observations. As mentioned a few times above, I think a relatively short waiting period before displaying other people’s “Unknowns” in Identify would be one very helpful change. If I add 75 observations via mobile in a little outing, there’s no way I’m going to be typing in the taxon names at the same time. It’s far, far quicker for me to use the Identify page to add IDs from my computer than it is to use my clumsy thumbs while hiking. It’s also way easier to add IDs from Identify than it is from the web uploader. By the time they’re uploaded and I get to my observations on the Identify page, folks have already started adding coarse IDs that weren’t all that necessary since I just needed a few minutes to add the IDs myself.
We could bring back the “ID Please” checkbox, not to totally exclude it from Identify if it’s not checked, but to slightly weight observations higher in the Identify page when people actually want IDs, vs. people who don’t really care as much about other people adding IDs/getting Research Grade immediately.
In summary, a few ideas from above that I liked, and a few of my own, that would be useful to me as an observer and IDer:
-Provide guidance on apps to at least add coarse ID, but let experienced users ignore if they want
-Provide guidance on web uploader to at least add coarse ID (already done, but message needs tweaking)
-Make it easier to add IDs quickly from the web uploader (more like Identify)
-Add a slight delay before other users’ “Unknowns” show up in Identify
-Or a longer, private “draft” mode, but do not allow drafts in perpetuity
-Use computer vision to automatically assign a kingdom to Unknowns; but overwrite at first human ID
-“Unknown” may not be unknown, just “not identified”, so consider a semantic change there
-Weight observations in Identify higher if folks actually want help with the ID
-Sort observations by number of users who have reviewed them, to help specifically deal with cases like “Unknowns” that should be marked as no evidence of organism or coarsely IDed + community cannot improve
One challenge I see with this is lets say it is a 24 hour delay, then under the current design, once they are ‘released’, they will be a couple of hundred pages deep in the identity pool, meaning unless someone either goes that deep, or specifically happens to be looking at that specific geography, then the odds of them being revieweed go way down.
It has been requested (I specifically added a change request for this) and the site said no, they would not consider a change. All they did was add an option to sort by latest updated buried in the filters. So that appears off the table.
I’ve never had someone yell at me for adding a coarse ID to an unknown and still find this entire issue frustrating. IMO, adding even a simple ID for a new user might be enough to help them figure out how the site works…meaning that adding a basic ID when they upload observations helps get faster community input.
In regard to “power users”, it seems kind of rude for them to get irritated in the way I’m seeing described. After all, there is really no rush to add observations (unless it’s the CNC), so why not take the time to make your ID’s before uploading? This whole argument seems silly since it’s really a matter of a likely similar time commitment to add ID when uploading or afterward.
Frankly, iNat is a social network and even power users need to make a choice about how they want to interact and add to community science rather than make folks feel unwelcome for trying to help.
while people should NOT be rude about coarse IDs… it’s also a big pain to review observations on the app and there are less resources available too so for those of us who use the app it is way easier to review on the computer after uploading.
In my opinion, “unkown” is not a good way to indicate multiple species, since often enough the species are identifiable. If you just go to a high taxon, somebody else will come along and ID the first picture, which then yet somebody else will agree to.
Using Life, as @kiwifergus suggests doesn’t help either, as it will keep the multi-species observation in the needs-ID pool.
Better would be to have a way to indicate that this observation can’t be improved. So I’d like to invite you to vote on this related feature request.
If this is implemented, either as a delay or as a user-controlled “draft mode”, then “date uploaded” should be forced to reflect the release date/time (or date/time draft mode is canceled), so that such observations behave like any other “immediate-release” observations in the system.
The site already turned down that request in favour of adding a sort by last updated filter option, you would have to get them to revisit that refusal.
Checking it for every observation would also defeat the purpose of having the checkbox in the first place. It is already assumed that every observation on iNaturalist “wants” to be identified. “ID Please” is a way to request special priority.
can you explain how placeholders work? i usually copy-paste them into comment, so they won’t vanish. but i’m wondering if i should upload sone stuff that i don’t know as “unknown”, so the placeholder would kick in, 'cause for now i’m uploading such things with generalized identifications (plantae/fungi).
Looping back to the original topic here, it sounds substantially similar to the draft mode that came out of this and several other discussions. @sgene Maybe we should close the topic or modify the request?