That happens to me automagically. Slow. Overloaded. Internet.
Click. Nothing happens. Click again … now it is there twice! I delete the automagically withdrawn ID - but it isn’t the user’s fault. Or intention. Infumigating 
Reading thru the earlier comments again.
Making the Agree button a setting we have to earn (as the Forum makes us work to earn ‘privileges’)
Choose My ID - makes it clearer that it is a deliberate and considered choice by the identifier, not yah thanks next.
I agree that changing the name of the Agree 
button might make it more intuitive. Confirm ID makes sense to me given my language bias.
However, I think the fundamental issue you are trying to address is knowledge deficit about how the site is meant to work. No small phrase can overcome that, especially on a global site.
I looked at the idea of a pop up that would appear when pressing agree on one’s own observation. I think something like this would be helpful without being overly problematic for high volume users (because they probably aren’t agreeing with IDs on their own observations in high volumes).
As someone who clicked the Agree button too much before I knew better, I think I would have responded to this type of education (especially if it was delivered on repeat). If something like this is possible, perhaps “Just in Time” training could be inserted elsewhere into the site.
Is there a reason you left this idea out of your proposed package?
In general, because adding pop-up dialogs has been seen by many (including staff) as a non-starter in other feature requests, the perception being that another step/barrier to interaction with the site is unlikely to be enough of a net-positive to be worth the development effort to implement.
But your point is well-taken that the limited pop-up discussed in that other thread would be targeted to situations most in need of some “slowing down” without affecting other uses of the Agree button. So I could definitely see it working well in concert with a re-named Agree button.
My current favorite: Add Same ID. Describes what the button does, without implying anything it does not do or represent. Hopefully it would also translate well into other languages.
EDIT: or, maybe just suppress the Agree button(s) on one’s own observations? Might have the same effect as a pop-up without adding an extra read and click.
Popup is fine.
But it must have a
Don’t Show Me This Again to click.
I really like the idea of removing the agree button from one’s own observations, better than having an additional pop-up window.
Regarding
I fear this would really become an issue in many languages.
First, to translate the meaning accurately, and second, there might just not be the possibility to have it in such a compact form, so the button might cover a considerable part of that ID window.
As someone who translated a large part of the website, my experience is that English is very effective in conveying precise information in both few and short words - I can hardly think of an (alphabetic) language with a more compact appearance
This reply is intended as information and context and comparison to another app with a version of an “Agree” button.
Just for context of how a “recently” developed app (iPhone) handles a somewhat related function:
When you record a bird sound on Merlin, the app lists the suggested bird identification. If you expand the bird suggested (toggle), the bird’s calls and songs are listed for the user to verify that the app was accurate. Listening and verifying are not required, just offered without any prompting to take another step. At the bottom of all the Merlin-supplied audios of the suggested bird is a button: “This is my bird!” Clicking it then offers to send the user to ebird to report the sighting or to save the sighting natively in Merlin; in other words, the button is to confirm–with an implication to perform due diligence but no prompting–that the observer agrees with the identification.
“This is my bird!” is a fairly large button relative to 
Agree
Would the iNat equivalent be: This is my organism!
Merlin is probably a US app and not global, and the punctuation’s conveyed enthusiasm might not translate to all cultures or to iNat’s ethos.
Again, none of this is intended as a suggestion. Just information and context and comparison to another app with a version of an “Agree” button.
I have been using iNat since 2017, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the forum until recently (~August 2022). I also didn’t stay on top of any communications about changes, and am honestly just blind sometimes to features I haven’t used.
So, sorry if this is inappropriate hijacking of the thread, but I just realized the mechanics of one of the Agree button workflows. Probably everyone else already knows this and maybe this is what they are talking about with the problematic agree buttons.
I was thinking it would be nice if there was a way to check off receipt of notifications in the Dashboard. I took a harder look (edit: to make sure this function wasn’t already in place) and noticed the “Agree” button on notifications under “All Updates” and “Your Content”.
I tested the button on one of my observations under “Your Content”. The effect of clicking this button is an agreeing ID and when you go back to “Your Content” that ID has moved to the top (potentially now with a nice little Research Grade green flag for positive reinforcement).
I think this specific agree button should be removed, at least under “Your Content”. I don’t think users can fully evaluate the merits of the recommended ID from this location. It also can be confused with an acknowledgement-like functionality for the uninitiated (even though it doesn’t really work that way). I’d be curious if there is a case for it under “All Updates”. Joined with subscriptions to taxa, that seems like a recipe for high volume Agrees with minimal review.
We should keep the agree buttons on prior IDs in the Identify pop up and Observation pages because those locations are designed to support a thorough review.
I am wary of clicking agree there, as if there are various IDs on the obs, iNat seems random in interpreting WHICH ID you are agreeing to. I open in a new tab and make sure iNat and I agree which ID I thought I clicked for.
I learned recently that agreeing on an observation, instead of on one particular identification in that observation, adds an ID for the current observation taxon (the taxon shown on the top line of the observation page - which may or may not be the same as the current community taxon). Unfortunately this is not always visually apparent when multiple different IDs are available in the observation for agreement. But now I know where to look to see what I am “agreeing” to.
I propose to remove Agree button from own observations.
I think it’s useful when IDing other users’ obs, for species that I can identify instantly, but…
…if I upload an obs, it is supposed I already had at least a few seconds to think about what it is, and to add the ID when I uploaded the obs.
If after the upload someone other add a more specific ID, it is supposed that I should take more time to think about it before agreeing, thus there is no need to save the few seconds time difference between clicking the agree button and adding a new ID.
The edge cases in which I can recognize the species instantly but accidentaly added a wrong ID are (I think) far less important that the lot of blind agreements from new users (mostly in good faith because they think “agree” means “thanks for the ID” - me too in the beginning).
I think is a very sensible proposal.
I click the agree button on this idea as well.
Especially on the apps, where the button just invites being clicked. Maybe this will be part of the new unified app revamp? We can hope
I don’t want to raise the bars. We already do not have enough IDying capacity.
Occasionally, I come across an observation where it looked like the identifier was experiencing indecision or doubts. Genus level, then species level, back to genus, back to species, back to genus, all in the same day or hour. Presumably, this was all done in good faith, as the identifier struggled to make up their mind about whether a species-level ID was possible. This seems like a good use case for your proposal – do we really need to see their struggle and doubts? Wouldn’t simply showing their final resolution be enough?
I also see it where it seems like the observer was just serially hitting every agree button available. Which would be addressed by @fornaeffe’s suggestion to make agree buttons unavailable to the observer on their own observations.
Sorry, typo – I meant identifier, not observer. I edited it.
Got it. So it seems like both approaches would be helpful.
I have not voted here, because there are multiple items suggested and whilst I agree to most, I don’t agree to all. I haven’t yet considered points 1 and 2 because they are on other threads.
I think points 3 and 4 made by the opening poster seem very sensible.
I am not keen on changing the title of the Agree button as outlined in point 5. To my mind, that button title currently states exactly what I am doing: agreeing with the existing ID. ‘Confirming’ seems much too hard and immutable for something that could be unconfirmed by the very next person to view the observation. I certainly don’t see myself ‘confirming’ things with my level of knowledge and to be honest I’m not really sure how many others could. It sounds too restrictive to me.
That said, I can see how there could be an issue with the integrity of the data should observations reach research grade too easily. Is this really is a problem? Do we have any data to suggest that it is? If so, I think that the suggestion for three IDs made by @DianaStuder may be advantageous. Also the suggestion by @fornaeffe to remove the agree button for own observations.
I would not like to see a thank you button. As someone who occasionally sends thank you messages where someone has made a lot of IDs or has gone to great lengths to explain something to me, I would like to think that my message actually means something because I have take the trouble to type it out. I would hate to see it reduced to the state of being an emoji and I wouldn’t want people to think that they have to moralistically hit the thank you button every time an ID is made (or conversely for the IDer to feel that their efforts have been ignored if the thank you button wasn’t hit). Please, let’s leave thank you messages as they are: a voluntary thing for people to do when the circumstances are appropriate.
That’s sort of the point? Users are only supposed to agree to IDs if they have the knowledge/skills/resources to evaluate whether that ID is correct. If users agree to an ID they do not understand, the observation has no longer been independently verified by a second person, which is the reason for two IDs being required for RG.
Observers uncritically agreeing to IDs on their observations is indeed a problem for many taxa. For taxa where there are lots of people knowledgeable enough to provide IDs, observations are likely to get reviewed and mistakes corrected. But for “difficult” taxa – e.g. many arthropod groups – there is a shortage of IDers and IDing from photos is tricky. As a result, even experts sometimes make mistakes. Often there is also a lot of misinformation about the taxon (e.g. non-specialists only know about certain common taxa and don’t realize there are other similar species). So it is not at all unusual for an observation to become RG baased on one wrong ID plus and uncritical agree and remain that way for a very long time before someone happens to come along with the time and knowledge to systematically review that taxon. There are some taxa where the majority of RG observations are probably incorrect or have an unjustified species-level ID.
The semantics of the word “agree” just suggest that someone thinks the ID sounds good and has no objections to it. It does not necessarily suggest that there has been a process of evaluating that ID. “Confirm” does suggest “I have checked it and think it is correct”. I don’t see a contradiction with the fact that it can later be changed or overturned by someone else – confirmation doesn’t mean fixing something in stone.
That said, I think removing the agree button on a user’s own observations would be a more effective solution to uncritical agrees than changing the name of the button.
