Improve ID function and name of Agree buttons - a modest proposal (not!)

It was back in 2020 when I naively suggested we should be 3 who agree.
Down these years I have done a lot of identifying - Cape Peninsula, Western Cape, rest of Africa, especially CNC and now GSB where the need is great.

3 to agree?! I am very happy when I can find 2 reliable identifiers for that obs.

I would add # 6 to the original list.
Follow your notifications. Then - consider each new ID thoughtfully, leaning towards withdraw - rather than delete or agree, unless able to support your ‘new’ ID.

2 Likes

To be honest: I do not see a problem at all.

Disagree to a higher taxon if you think species level cannot be ID with the given evidence. That is I what I do, when I think it is not possible to tell the species.

Do not ID to species level unless you think this observation is good enough for science. If I am not that sure, I ID to a higher taxon and leave a comment like " I think it this species". No observer can push the observation to RG, even if they take may comment to suggest a species.

The main advantage of the two IDers rule is, every RG observation is reviewable at al. That ist different from other plattforms, where no reveiw is needed and at least in some cases even no evidence at al is needed to push the observation to GBIF.

1 Like

I have a concern with the shortcut “a” on the identification page.
I have noticed “rubber stamping” where a user goes through and presses “a” on the observation without checking. Now, it has happened where 2 users have agreed with species A, and a third user correctly re-id’s it to species B (Species B is the correct one). But because the identification is weighted to Species A the shortcut takes that as your agreement.

I am for the shortcuts and use them when adding other information except for the “a” option.

The problem here, is people do not read the comments or notes. So often your minute of time to add value to the database is promptly ignored by others.

Do you have evidence that people are entering these IDs by typing “a” in the identify module rather than some other method?

If there are conflicting IDs on an observation, the “a” shortcut should be selecting the observation ID and not one or another of the existing IDs.

1 Like

When there are multiple IDs, I usually open in a new tab - so I can make absolutely sure that iNat is agreeing with same ID that I chose. Have been caught by that before too often. Not necessarily either a deliberate or careless choice.

No, I do not have evidence. but have noted it in the past.

You did not answer my question. I am aware that some users “rubber stamp” IDs. I was asking why you believe that they are doing so using the “a” shortcut in identify mode.

There are multiple ways to enter IDs and multiple ways to access observations. iNat does not record how an ID was made (except for adding a symbol if the CV option was selected). If all you see is that someone made the same ID as one of the previous IDs on an observation, there is no way to know whether they were using identify mode, explore, their dashboard, or one of the apps to access the observation. You don’t even know for certain whether they clicked “agree” or typed it in themselves.

You claim also does not make sense because in the situation you describe, where there are 2 IDs for species X and 1 ID for species Y, the “a” shortcut should add an ID for the lowest shared taxon, not species X. If this is not happening, then there is a bug.

I have tried this before and it chose the one that carried the most weight. Where species X was the wrong one and species Y the correct one, the agreement went to species X as it had the most agreements.
If someone uses the shortcut “a” and checks that the correct species is selected, great.
After I noted that, I stopped using this shortcut.

I know this.

Because people take the easiest route, and before you say I did not answer the question. No, I do not have proof, it is my theory.

Ps. I am not saying shortcuts are bad. They can and may be abused, or used incorrectly.

If this is really happening, please post a bug report, as it is not intended behavior.

Maybe so, but the “a” shortcut will not be the easiest route for all users and all workflows.

You are assuming that most users are aware of the shortcut keys in Identify (they are not particularly obvious), and that Identify is their preferred mode of interacting with observations. This is very much not the case for everyone. Depending on what I am doing, I may be just as likely to use Explore as Identify because I find it more convenient for certain situations; I doubt I am the only one. In addition, many users access iNat primarily or exclusively through mobile devices where there is no Identify mode.

(Edit: the reason I have been insistent about asking you to explain the basis for your conclusions is because it isn’t possible to find an effective solution to a problem unless the underlying cause is correctly diagnosed. So it is necessary to determine whether the “a” shortcut is in fact the source of what you are seeing. If it is not, removing this option will not have the desired effect.)

1 Like

Nooo, I need my “a” shortcut. When I’m doing a taxon “sweep” (idk if my futile attempts at making the “Needs ID” pool smaller qualify as that), I don’t want to have to use my mouse to click the “agree” button all the time, nor type in the letter combo for the taxon on every observation.

I wish there was a way to prevent this. For example, “a” in this case opening a menu to choose to agree with one of the conflicting IDs or with the observation taxon.
More often than not, I hit “a” automatically after seeing a correct ID on the side (and missing the conflicting ID) only for it to add an ID as the observation taxon. So I have to go back and add the ID proper, and delete the other one so as to not leave clutter…

1 Like

Does anyone ever want to agree with the community taxon in these kids of situations? To me it doesn’t seem helpful to do so–either you agree with one side or the other of the disagreement, or you don’t know which is right and aren’t going to add an ID at all. I’m willing to bet that if we asked people, pretty much no one would want the a hot key to work how it currently does in those situations. Myself I would even prefer it do nothing on these observations rather than add the community ID.

2 Likes

Yes, me too. I suspect it is more an artefact of how the “a” shortcut works, rather than a deliberate choice, though.